The businessmen Rafael Lasso and José Salces have been sentenced to six months in prison and to pay 3 million euros for a crime against the Public Treasury, after ratifying this Friday before the Criminal Court an agreement of conformity with the Prosecutor's Office. Of that amount, 1.5 million are to return the defrauded money and the rest, for the same amount, as a fine. Each one will pay a quarter of that fine, while the other half will be borne by the company they share with Juan Francisco Rosa and which has also been convicted, Management Los Clicos S.L, through which the fraud was committed.
As for Rosa, he has been acquitted thanks to the testimony of the other two defendants, who shortly before the trial presented a document exonerating his partner and stating that he did not know the details of the operation. Unlike Lasso and Salces, Juan Francisco Rosa did not appear as a joint administrator of the company but as a de facto administrator, and his name did not appear in the papers of the investigated operation.
Prison admission will be suspended
Thanks to the agreement of conformity with the Prosecutor's Office, the trial has not been held and the defendants have managed to reduce the penalties that were initially requested, which were 5 years in prison and 7 million euros in fine for each one. In addition, having finally set a prison sentence of 6 months, they will not be imprisoned. This has been ratified in the brief hearing that has been held this Friday, in which the parties have limited themselves to ratifying the agreement before the judge of the Criminal Court Number 1 of Arrecife.
Before the magistrate, both the Public Prosecutor and the State Attorney, appearing as a private prosecution on behalf of the Tax Agency, have agreed to suspend the entry into prison, provided that the convicts do not re-offend in the next two years. In addition, all parties have agreed not to appeal the ruling, which is therefore final, and which also includes that the two convicts may not receive subsidies or public aid for six years.
In that brief hearing, both Lasso and Salces had to take the floor to confirm that they "agree" with the letter of conformity, which implies recognizing that they defrauded more than 1.5 million euros from the Treasury, by not paying the corresponding taxes for the sale of a hotel. Regarding the economic responsibility, the judge pointed out during the hearing that they have already deposited the money, which was an indispensable condition to avoid the trial that was going to be held this Friday.
They recognize their "clear intention to defraud"
The events that gave rise to this case occurred in 2010, when the company Management Los Clicos S.L., of which these three businessmen are partners, sold the hotel La Geria, located in Puerto del Carmen. According to the indictment that Lasso and Salces have recognized, the sale was made "for a total price of 13,871,000 euros", but "with clear intention to defraud" the Public Treasury, "deliberately omitted to make the corresponding declaration regarding the Corporate Tax" of that year, thus avoiding a millionaire payment.
Two years later, when the Treasury detected the alleged fraud, the defendants made "a supplementary declaration" for the year 2010, recognizing the sale and putting the profit at 6,755,663 euros. However, they did not pay the corresponding taxes then either. To avoid this, they allocated 5,140,000 euros to the Reserve for Investments in the Canary Islands (RIC) from that profit, despite being "aware of its impropriety", according to prosecutor Tomás Fernández de Paiz.
The main reason, according to the Prosecutor's Office, is that this money "did not come from any economic activity", as required by the law that regulates the RIC, so they could not benefit from this figure. It was then that the Tax Agency filed a complaint against the three businessmen, thus giving rise to this case. In the case of the Tax Agency, which has also adhered to the agreement of conformity and the reduction of penalties, in its initial indictment it requested 4 years in prison and a fine of 4.6 million euros each of the defendants, as well as the return of the 1.5 million euros defrauded, "plus default interest".
