The European Public Prosecutor's Office has decided to take over the investigation of the "Masks Case" because it considers that the possible fraud of four million euros suffered by the Canary Islands health system at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic may affect European funds and has asked the Court in charge of the case to "refrain" from carrying out new proceedings.
In a decree issued from its headquarters in Madrid, the European Public Prosecutor's Office announces that it is activating its "right of referral" to assume jurisdiction over the case and its investigation, since it suspects that the money paid in advance by the Canary Islands Health Service to acquire one million FFP3 masks that it never received could come from the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund).
The text of the decree, which has been advanced by the newspaper "El Cierre Digital", recalls that, in accordance with Community law, the national authorities that were investigating this alleged embezzlement of public funds (the Investigating Court number 7 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office) "are obliged to refer their actions".
The Court has suspended the statements it had planned for this Friday after receiving this communication, as reported to EFE by sources close to the case, in which the former director of the Canary Islands Health Service, Conrado Domínguez, who resigned last week, precisely because of this case, is listed as a defendant; the former director of Economic Resources of the Canary Islands public health service, Ana María Pérez, and the businessman Rayco Rubén González, owner of RR7.
"Reactivation" of a contract terminated for non-compliance
According to the facts under investigation, the Canary Islands Health Service paid in 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, four million euros for a batch of one million FFP3 masks that it never received from the company RR7, a company dedicated to the car trade with no previous experience in the import of sanitary material.
The contracted masks arrived at Gran Canaria airport, but Customs intervened and destroyed them because they were counterfeits of products from the firm 3M. Faced with this, the Canary Islands Health Service decided to terminate the order to RR7.
A year later, in 2021, Conrado Domínguez authorized the reactivation of that contract, despite the fact that it was legally terminated, and RR7 was given the opportunity to import another batch of 1.2 million masks of another brand at the expense of the money it had already received, masks that the SCS also did not receive.
For these facts, Conrado Domínguez has been charged with crimes of malfeasance and influence peddling; Ana María Pérez for malfeasance; and the businessman Rayco Rubén González for aggravated fraud and money laundering.
New crimes
In the last order he issued on this case, on October 30, the judge in charge of the case announced that he saw the beginning of a fifth crime, embezzlement, and that he considered that the matter had taken "a radical turn" after the statement made by the owner of the company RR7, the defendant Rayco Rubén González.
The judge said in that order that González has provided evidence from which "numerous derivations may arise regarding the facts and new contracts", as well as lead to "the extension of the investigation to new people".
As of that order, the investigation of the case is formally declared secret to "prevent sources of evidence from being destroyed or neutralizing the result of the proceedings that are agreed upon".
In his statement, Rayco Rubén González alluded to contacts with the then director of the SCS that he had denied maintaining.
Upon learning the content of that testimony, the president of the Canary Islands summoned Conrado Domínguez to a meeting to give him explanations, in a conversation that ended with the latter's decision to submit his resignation.
