The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has denounced a possible embezzlement of funds for migrant minors in the Canary Islands. In centers of Lanzarote and Gran Canaria. In particular, on the island of Lanzarote, the La Santa and Yaiza resources are in the spotlight. The prosecutor Javier Ródenas has filed a complaint against Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI, one of the organizations hired by the Government of the Canary Islands to care for the minors who arrive to the islands by boat, after seeing indications that it embezzled public money for the benefit of its directors.
As reported by the newspaper Canarias 7, the complaint has led the Court of Instruction number 7 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to open preliminary criminal proceedings to investigate the management of the Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI and, in particular, the behavior of four of its directors.
As La Voz en Lanzarote has learned, since March 2022, this foundation no longer manages them, but FEPAS.
Awards for emergency contracts
The Prosecutor's Office appreciates in the actions of these people indications of several crimes, such as falsification of commercial documents, disloyal administration and embezzlement of public funds, and criticizes the Ministry of Social Rights of the autonomous community for its "lack of monitoring and control" of the contracts that it awarded to that foundation through the emergency route between the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Anticorruption explains in its complaint that it has examined the bank movements of three reception centers for immigrant minors in Gran Canaria and two in Lanzarote, as well as the accounts of their directors, and has detected several irregularities. Among them, it has discovered indications that significant amounts of public money have been diverted for "private purposes".
The Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI received 95 euros per day for each minor who arrived by boat and was welcomed in its centers, so it is estimated that it managed 12.50 million euros in four years only in the centers of Gran Canaria.
The Prosecutor's Office has also detected, according to the newspaper, that when the banks objected to the movements they made in their accounts, the investigated began to justify certain expenses with invoices unrelated to the activity of the centers and the minors, such as medical treatments and meals in restaurants.
In the complaint, the Public Ministry argues that "there are indications of a lack of monitoring and control in the emergency processed contracts", which are "evident in the absence of measures and consequences of penalties when its breach by the foundation becomes apparent".
The centers object of this investigation in Gran Canaria are those of Portobello, in Puerto Rico (Gran Canaria); Guiniguada and Alcorán, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Consulted by EFE, the Anti-Corruption prosecutor of the province of Las Palmas, Javier Ródenas, did not want to make any comment on this investigation.
