The Prosecutor's Office has filed a lawsuit for tax fraud, which leaves open possible derivations in the form of embezzlement and money laundering, against four businessmen who sold sanitary material to the Government of the Canary Islands during the pandemic for a value of 22.9 million euros.
The defendants are the president of UD Las Palmas, Miguel Ángel Ramírez, and the former councilor in the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and former regional deputy Lucas Bravo de Laguna, Christian Cerpa Espino and Noel Jammal Fernández, Ramírez himself has confirmed to EFE.
In the lawsuit, the Public Ministry examines contracts for a total amount of 22.9 million euros, of which it maintains that there is a substantial part, from 9 to 10 million euros, that "does not correspond to the material delivered", the spokeswoman for the Las Palmas Prosecutor's Office, prosecutor María Rosa Rubio, told EFE.
Businessman Ramírez has stressed to EFE that this does not appear in the prosecutor's complaint, which is formulated for six crimes against the Public Treasury (he provides the cover of the document as proof), and also that the judge is only investigating him for tax fraud.
The order by which the Investigating Court number 5 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria admits the complaint says in its last foundation that the facts are "initially constitutive of crimes against the Public Treasury, without prejudice to the fact that in the development of the investigation serious indications of money laundering, corruption and embezzlement may be appreciated".
The Prosecutor's Office maintains that these three additional crimes are also raised as a line of investigation in the complaint, because they are mentioned by the Treasury in the complaint that gives rise to the case.
The spokeswoman for the Public Ministry explains that the complaint that is already being processed by Court number 5 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria revolves around the supplies contracted by the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) to Damco Trading Services and Tanoja Services in 2020 and 2021.
Noel Jammal Fernández appears as the sole administrator of the two companies that are being investigated, Damco Trading Services and Tanoja Services, and that have their fiscal address in Madrid.
As for Miguel Ángel Ramírez and Lucas Bravo de Laguna, president of the Unidos por Gran Canaria party, the Prosecutor's Office links them to two commercial entities to which it believes the funds deposited by Damco Trading Services and Tanoja Services were transferred. Christian Cerpa Espino is also related to the final destination of the allegedly embezzled money.
The Prosecutor's Office initiated these proceedings as a result of events reported by the Inspection of the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT), when observing a discrepancy between the payments made to the companies and the material supplied.
"None of the recipients of the transferred amounts (...) justified the performance of any activity from which the large income from which they benefited derives", says the statement from the Las Palmas Prosecutor's Office.
Ramírez has assured EFE that he did not sell any material to the Canary Islands Health Service, but that his role was as an intermediary in the operation, as representative in the islands of Damco Trading Services and Tanoja Services, companies of Noel Jammal Fernández, in an operation for which he subcontracted Bravo de Laguna and Cerpa.
The businessman from Gran Canaria has insisted that "all the goods that were requested were delivered" and that he is confident of demonstrating during the investigation that no crime was committed. In fact, he recalls that the contracts of Damco Trading Services and Tanoja Services were audited by the Court of Accounts.
According to the Public Sector Procurement Platform, the SCS contracted these companies to supply them with surgical and FPP2 masks, nitrile gloves and swabs -hospital swabs with which samples were taken for covid tests-, among other sanitary material.
The files specify that part of the money used to purchase this sanitary material came from European funds.
This led the Las Palmas Prosecutor's Office to raise a query to the European Prosecutor's Office to find out if it wanted to take charge of the investigation, but it decided that the investigation should continue its course in the Gran Canaria court that has admitted the complaint for processing, sources from the Public Ministry have specified.
This is the third criminal case that is opened for purchases of sanitary material in the Canary Islands during the state of alarm: the first examines an alleged scam of 4 million euros in the supply of masks that already cost the position to the director of the SCS, Conrado Domínguez, and the second analyzes the four contracts for more than 12 million euros awarded to the company related to the so-called Koldo case, also for the purchase of masks.
