The judge’s decision to expand the investigation against Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, leaves in suspense what, until now, was the most predictable outcome of the case: an agreement with the prosecution and with the Treasury to recognize his fraud. prosecutor, pay half a million euros and avoid prison. The new separate document does not overlap, on paper, with the main part of the case and, technically, there is no obstacle to reaching an agreement. But it remains to be seen whether his defense is ready to sit at the table of accusations after the instructor decided to analyze whether, in addition to defrauding the treasury, he committed corruption crimes in his commercial relationship with the Quirón group.
The prosecution denounced Alberto González Amador in the courts of Madrid, as revealed by elDiario.es, on one charge: having defrauded more than 350,000 euros between 2020 and 2021 using a network of false invoices. The businessman made several million euros from commissions on buying and selling medical supplies during the first months of the pandemic and sought to underpay his company’s corporation tax , Maxwell Cremona, by allocating expenses of hundreds of thousands of euros to works that they never existed, but they benefited him fiscally.
During the first months of the investigation, the representation of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner tried to combat the Treasury’s accusations and defended the reality of the work, providing invoices and explanations of his business attempts in Mexico and in Ivory Coast. But the strategy is gradually evolving towards recognition of the facts and damage control strategy. First, by withdrawing certain bills with which he had tried to pay less taxes; and, a month before being denounced, he proposed a pact to the prosecution. In this agreement, he was willing to accept eight months in prison and more than half a million euros in debts, fines and interest in exchange for not going to prison and closing the case with a sentence compliant.
“Certainly, two crimes were committed against the Public Treasury,” his lawyer said in an email to the prosecutor investigating him, Julián Salto. At that time, González Amador was ready to accept his two tax crimes and, over the months and the investigation, he also covered up the documentary falsification attributed to him in the bankruptcy procedure for the unreal invoices. As the prosecutor himself said in an email once denounced, this agreement was possible even if the other defendants did not want to reach an agreement.
The investigation by the Public Ministry of the Treasury was so exhaustive that the procedure opened in a Madrid court was limited to requesting all documents from the Treasury and calling González Amador himself and his alleged associates to testify. Without success because, to date, neither Díaz Ayuso’s partner nor the rest of the defendants have appeared before the judge. His first statement was scheduled for May 20, but on that day the businessman, after avoiding the press by wearing a wig, returned home without showing up because it had not been possible to locate some of the accused. His second appearance, already at the end of June, was also postponed and the commissioner did not even enter the Plaza de Castilla.
In both cases, the possible pact with the prosecution remained the real protagonist, a topic of conversation in the court corridor and in front of the judge herself. Indeed, on the day of his second statement, the objective was to sign this pact and seal his sentence accordingly, which is why he waited for his lawyers in a nearby hotel. But this operation failed when the popular accusations of the PSOE and Más Madrid filed a document requesting that the file be expanded. And that we should not stop at double tax fraud, but rather study its relations with the Quirón Group, the health giant that serves as a privileged contractor for the Community of Madrid chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
From tax fraud to corruption
The request from the political parties went well beyond the tax fraud that González Amador had admitted in writing. They asked the judge to investigate the links between the businessman and the Quirón Group which, as revealed by elDiario.es, are not limited to jobs and invoices totaling hundreds of thousands of euros. Includes direct economic relations with Fernando Camino, president of Quirón Prevention. For example, during the purchase of a company belonging to his wife for almost half a million euros. Shortly before, he had earned nearly two million commissions for selling masks to a company, itself linked to Camino. This businessman is a key figure in his professional rise linked to Chiron.
The PSOE and Más Madrid denounced, among other things, that some of these operations responded to a strategy by Camino aimed at collecting a commission on these operations of purchasing and selling masks and asked the judge to collect the communications of González Amador with Quiron. The magistrate’s first response was negative. But this week, in an unusual move, the judge herself considered an appeal against a decision she herself had made and opened a separate room to analyze these accusations, among other crimes, of corruption in business.
This is a separate document from the main case of tax fraud and which, on paper, does not prevent González Amador from also signing the agreement that he has been negotiating for months with the prosecution for his 350,000 euros under -paid corporate tax. Before the summer, the prosecution opposed the opening of an investigation into this derivative of the affair. But the scenario affects the strategy of the businessman, who from the beginning tried to make the affair last as short as possible to avoid the inevitable public exposure.
González Amador can afford to accept a few months in prison because, as he has no criminal record and plans to pay every penny of his financial penalty, he is not at risk of going to prison. But a first prison sentence, pending a second investigation, can open the door to compulsory execution of the sentence. For example, if the first was suspended on condition of not repeating the crime or if the record is considered countable.
The coming weeks will therefore be crucial to know if González Amador’s defense continues the agreement in the main tax fraud case or if it cools these negotiations with the prosecution, while waiting to see how the second branch of the case progresses. . All this, while a second complaint advances much more quickly than the original: the trial against the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, for revealing secrets after a complaint filed by the businessman. The Supreme Court announced the opening of a procedure which could also be a tool allowing González Amador’s defense to question the accusations against him, although for the moment it has not explored this avenue.
