Confessions of all crimes, "repentance", "willingness to collaborate with the Administration of Justice" and advance payments of hundreds of thousands of euros to pay the fines. That is what 9 of the 11 defendants in the Yate case, which began a decade ago and is scheduled to begin trial on March 20, have just offered. A few days before the trial begins, almost all of the defendants have decided to acknowledge the facts recounted by the Public Prosecutor's Office, admitting that there was a scheme for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca, in exchange for which the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, has confessed that he received hundreds of thousands of euros from "different developers and builders".
In several writings submitted to the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, Reyes himself and 4 other defendants express their intention to reach a settlement agreement with the Public Prosecutor's Office and with the private prosecution to avoid the trial and reduce the sentences requested for them. In addition, Reyes extends this willingness to collaborate to his wife, Antonia Torres, and three of his children, María Noelia, José Francisco Abel and María Beatriz Reyes, who are also accused in the case of money laundering offences.
"My client, his wife and children undertake to deposit in the current account of the court the amount of 300,172.61 euros prior to March 3 as payment of the fine for the crime of money laundering", states the document submitted by the former mayor's lawyer, Pablo Luna, which is dated February 15. Initially, the Public Prosecutor's Office was asking for a fine of almost 9 million euros for the Reyes family (6 million should be paid by the former mayor and the rest, in different amounts, by his wife and three children). As for the prison sentences, it was requesting 25 years in prison for the former mayor and 5 for his wife and children, although all these sentences will now be reduced with the settlement agreement. But for the moment, Reyes has already made that deposit of more than 300,000 euros.
The former secretary "expressly acknowledges" that he committed a crime
Along with Reyes, the former secretary of the Yaiza Town Council, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, who had already been removed from his post due to a previous conviction, has also confessed. Now, the former official "expressly acknowledges" that he committed crimes against land planning, administrative prevarication, embezzlement of public funds and documentary falsification in the exercise of his office, as stated in the indictment presented in this case in 2013 by prosecutors Javier Ródenas and Ignacio Stampa. For the former secretary, they were initially asking for 6 and a half years in prison.
The other three defendants who have acknowledged the facts imputed to them by the Public Prosecutor's Office are the tax advisor Manuel Benito Mesa Ferrer and two friends and partners of the Reyes family, Antonio Marcelo Machín and Simeón Camacho. The first, in the letter he sent to the Provincial Court, acknowledges that as a tax advisor he helped to conceal the illicit assets of the former mayor. Specifically, he admits that through another company he managed a "shell company", Sea Sun Lanzarote SL, where he "concealed the ownership of the funds and assets illicitly acquired by José Francisco Reyes and his family". In addition, he points out that another defendant in the case for the same facts, his brother José Rafael Mesa Ferrer, also "knew the illicit origin of the funds".
In the case of Manuel Benito Mesa Ferrer, he has already deposited 20,000 euros to face the fine requested for him by the Public Prosecutor's Office in this case. In addition, he offers to pay another 51,000 euros "within three months from the lifting of the embargoes" that weigh on him and that, according to his lawyer, "prevent him from obtaining financing to pay the remaining amount, which he does not have nor can he obtain at this time". In the provisional indictment, the Public Prosecutor's Office was asking for 4 and a half years in prison and a fine of 800,000 euros for him.
"Avoid the macro-trial"
For their part, Simeón Camacho and Antonio Marcelo Machín have also deposited 10,000 euros each, as payment of part of the fine claimed for them by the Public Prosecutor's Office. In a joint letter they sent to the Provincial Court, dated March 1, the two also indicate their willingness to reach an "agreement with the public and private prosecution" to avoid "the holding of the macro-trial", which is scheduled to be held for almost two and a half months in Gran Canaria, between March 20 and June 1.
Thus, they expressly acknowledge the facts contained in the indictment, in which the Public Prosecutor's Office was asking for three years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros for them. According to that document from the Public Prosecutor's Office, both belonged to the "circle of friends" of José Francisco Reyes and helped him to conceal his assets, "despite the fact that they knew the criminal origin of the funds they were handling". As the Public Prosecutor's Office stated and the defendants now acknowledge, they did so through the company Acuimar Cachazo, in which they appeared as owners together with one of Reyes' daughters.
In addition to these confessed defendants, two other people must sit on the bench in this case, who have not so far submitted settlement agreements, so the trial could be held only with them. One is the other tax advisor, José Rafael Mesa Ferrer, and the other is the head of the Technical Office, Antonio Lorenzo. For Lorenzo, the Public Prosecutor's Office is not asking for prison but disqualification, for a period of 10 years. In his case, his indictment is linked to his intervention in the file that allowed the approval of the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, which has already been declared illegal by the Courts. The municipal building surveyor of Yaiza Alfredo Morales, who has already died, was also accused in the case.
Arrests in 2009 and a first confession
The investigation of this case began in 2006, following a complaint filed by the then Minister of Territorial Policy of the Cabildo, Carlos Espino, who decided to resort to criminal proceedings. Until that moment, with different politicians and parties at the head, the Island Corporation had been appealing in the administrative litigation route the hotel licenses granted by José Francisco Reyes between 1998 and 2003, and all of them were declared illegal.
It was then that the investigation of crimes against land planning began, in a case that later grew and expanded, and in which the Drugs and Organised Crime Unit (Udyco) of the National Police and later the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (Udef) intervened. The reports they made on Reyes' assets led to his arrest in September 2009, along with his wife and three children.
After his arrest, the former mayor confessed for the first time to having received money in exchange for granting illegal licenses and even gave the names of several businessmen. "Nobody gives anything in exchange for nothing", he declared before the judge who at that time was investigating the case, María Dolores García Benítez, and before the prosecutor Ignacio Stampa. However, days after receiving a visit from Felipe Fernández Camero's daughter, Juana Fernández de las Heras, at the Tahíche Penitentiary Centre - where he spent two and a half months in pre-trial detention - Reyes retracted his confession.
Now, in the face of the imminent trial, the former mayor has confessed again, and along with him almost all of the defendants in the case have done so. At least in the central piece, since there are still two others pending trial. One, for the different residential licenses granted in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, after the development of the plan was illegally approved. The other, which is also only pending trial, for the allegedly illegal payments to Felipe Fernández Camero from the Yaiza Town Council. Initially, Camero was charged in the Yate case as the alleged "mastermind" and instigator of José Francisco Reyes' criminal conduct, although his indictment was eventually dismissed, as there was no evidence of this urban planning advice to the former mayor. However, precisely because no document was found to prove this advice, the prosecutor asked to open a new investigation for alleged embezzlement of funds, for the payments that the lawyer received from the Town Council for this concept.