The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is negotiating with the Russian businessman based in Gran Canaria, Vladimir Kokorev, a settlement for the laundering of 120 million euros in undeclared funds that it claims he earned between 1999 and 2014, profits that it attributes to the illegal sale of weapons to the Teodoro Obiang regime in Equatorial Guinea.
On Monday, the sixth section of the Las Palmas Provincial Court is scheduled to hold a first hearing on the so-called Kokorev case after rejecting the defense's request to transfer this case, which has already been running for 16 years, to the National Court.
The Prosecutor's Office itself has announced that the hearing on May 19 is convened only "for the purpose of settlement", because it is negotiating with the defense an agreed sentence whose terms it assures will be revealed that same day, if the defendants accept them.
Until this moment, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office had been requesting eight years in prison and a fine of 240 million euros for Vladimir Kokorev, whom it accuses of having laundered millionaire profits allegedly obtained from selling military equipment to Equatorial Guinea at prices that included "notorious overcosts".
His wife, Yulia Maleeva, and his son, Igor Kokorev, face the same charges, for whom they are demanding six years in prison and a fine of 150 million.
The Sands Beach Resort SL complex, located in Costa Teguise, is linked to the investigation carried out by Anti-Corruption against the Kokorev family, since the Russian couple nationalized in Spain and composed of Vladimir Kokorev and Julia Maleeva, took over the hotel complex and their son Igor Kokorev assumed its management.
The charges for which the Spanish Justice can demand responsibilities from the Kokorevs are limited to the crime of money laundering due to the conditions that Panama imposed in 2015 to extradite them, when they were arrested in that country.
In an indictment to which EFE has had access, the Prosecutor's Office describes Vladimir Kokorev as the "head of a transnational criminal organization" dedicated to the "corrupt trade of military defense and dual-use material".
The Anti-Corruption Office assures that the Kokorevs managed to generate "an illicit millionaire wealth of at least 120 million euros, in the period between 1999 and 2014", supplying "weapons of war" to the Government of Teodoro Obiang, at a time when Equatorial Guinea was forming its naval forces.
Through the accounts of their corporate network, it continues, 678.92 million euros from 59 transfers made by the Public Treasury of Equatorial Guinea and a company called Abayak SA circulated.
The prosecutor even details in his writing that Vladimir Kokorev has links with the criminal organization of "a citizen of the Russian Federation convicted of illegal trafficking and smuggling of weapons for carrying out the sale to China and Iran of cruise missiles with nuclear warhead capacity".
"That activity (with Equatorial Guinea), never declared and always hidden", says the Prosecutor's Office, was carried out through two Panamanian companies (Kalunga Company SA and Intracoastal Trading) and another from the Scheychelles Islands (SJ Marine Company Ltd.)", which gave "coverage" to the "multiple contracts" concluded by Vladimir Kokorev.
"All carried out with notorious overcosts and overbilling charged to the Public Treasury of Malabo, of sale of military weapons, war and naval infrastructures, sold in collusion with officials and high military dignitaries to the Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea", he continues.
The Anti-Corruption Office also formulates the same charges against a lawyer from Gran Canaria who allegedly collaborated in the laundering, Juan José Arencibia, and two sisters of his, for whom it requests sentences of five years in prison and fines of 100, ten and seven million euros.
In the order that put an end to the investigation in May 2021, the Court number 5 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria estimated at 450 million euros the income that the Kokorevs would have obtained by selling "ships, combat helicopters, armored vehicles, military corvettes, patrol boats, frigates, fighter planes, bombers and dual-use military weapons" to Equatorial Guinea.
For the instructor, there were indications to take the case to trial that the Kokorevs and their collaborators earned 100 million "inflating the costs" of that material, with the collaboration of two advisors and three relatives of Obiang with positions in the Armed Forces or the Guinean Government (a son-in-law, a cousin and a nephew), of whom he said in that order that they received commissions from the defendants.
To date, businessman Vladimir Kokorev has always denied that neither he, nor his wife Yulia Maleeva, nor his son Igor Kokorev have bribed or paid commissions to relatives and advisors of the president of Equatorial Guinea to facilitate the sale of weapons to that country.
The family assures that the commercial relations with Equatorial Guinea were established by Vladimir Kokorev, without the participation of his wife or his son; defends that they were not illicit and that they consisted of the supply of "ships for the transport of goods and people, as well as helicopters, patrol boats and other goods".