The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Las Palmas has filed a complaint against the former directors of the two migrant children's centers that arrived in Lanzarote by boat, as well as against two former directors of centers in Gran Canaria for the possible crimes of falsification of commercial documents, disloyal administration and embezzlement of public funds.
The prosecutor Javier Ródenas has filed a complaint against the Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI, in charge of managing the centers for unaccompanied migrants, and against those who were in charge of directing these spaces between 2018 and 2021.
The Fundación Respuesta Social, investigated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, managed six children's centers in Lanzarote, two of them for foreign minors through emergency channels, in addition to four centers in Gran Canaria.
The Insular Institute of Social Care of Lanzarote, dependent on the Cabildo of Lanzarote, awarded Fundación Respuesta Social through emergency procedures in 2018 the management of an emergency device for migrant children in Yaiza.
According to the complaint, the directors of four migrant children's centers, including those of La Santa and Yaiza, would have used "different procedures to achieve personal enrichment and/or private enjoyment of part of the public funds" that were intended to alleviate the needs of the minors.
This money came from the coffers of the Government of the Canary Islands or the Cabildo of Lanzarote and was intended entirely to cover the costs of caring for migrant children.
Evidence of criminal activity
According to the complaint of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to which La Voz has had access, Fundación decided, between 2018 and April 2020, that the public money received should be deposited in the account of the director of the La Santa center and the director of the Yaiza center. "The Fundación was making periodic deposits into said personal account in attention to the expenses of the Children's Center".
After detecting "opaque, deficient and not very rigorous use" of financial management for "having received and issued operations in their accounts without justifying the origin/destination" of the money, the banking entity where that money was deposited decided to terminate the contract and cancel the directors' accounts.
Among the former senior officials of the Lanzarote centers who would not have been able to justify the origin of the money were the former director of the La Santa children's center and the former director of the Yaiza center.
Both the directors of Gran Canaria and those of Lanzarote, hired by the Fundación Respuesta Social, would have received and issued banking operations allegedly without justifying the origin and destination of the money.
"The defendants, acting on behalf of the Fundación and for its benefit, took advantage of the gross breach of the duties of supervision, monitoring and control of the activity of economic management [...] and executed innumerable and substantial cash disposals", relates the complaint of the Prosecutor's Office.
The Public Prosecutor's Office highlights the alleged presence of cash withdrawals, as well as the diversion of money flows to personal accounts or of relatives of those responsible for the centers.
"The defendants diverted to their personal accounts, throughout the period of time in which they exercised their functions as directors of the Foreign Children's Centers, amounts of money that should have been destined for the complete care, social and economic integration of the foreign children of the center they directed", denounces Javier Ródenas in his writing.
According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the directors would have transferred public money to their personal accounts, would have made personal payments with a bank card from the Fundación and would have seized money from the administrations.
Once the first banking entity decreed the closure for "not justifying the real destination of the money for the numerous cash transactions", the High Patronage of the Fundación decided to create a new account in another entity in the name of the company itself, with credit cards in the name of the director of the center. In the Yaiza center, the director ceased her employment relationship with the company and did not have access to this second bank.
Management of the centers in Lanzarote
According to the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Javier Ródenas, between 2018 and 2022, the Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI managed the children's center of Arrecife, the children's center of Tinajo, the Timanfaya center, the César Manrique center, the migrant children's center of Yaiza and that of La Santa.
It was in May 2018, when the Emergency Device for unaccompanied foreign minors began. At that time, 15 places were activated in a center in Yaiza. Almost a year later, in April 2019, the Albergue de La Santa was launched. The Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI was chosen because it was already doing "the same in other children's centers in Lanzarote".
During this period, the Fundación received 12,505,878 public euros between 2020 and 2022 between the centers of Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. In particular, between 2019 and 2020, the Cabildo of Lanzarote paid nearly seven million euros to the Fundación.
Children's center of Lanzarote
Between 2018 and 2021, the center known as Las Casitas Forestales de Yaiza, with capacity for 15 places, received from the Insular Institute of Social Care of Lanzarote a total of 2,116,475.30 euros.
In particular, between April 2018 and September 2020, the Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI received 1,299,202 euros to manage the Yaiza device. However, only 170,588.92 euros were transferred to a bank account in the name of the director to allegedly cover the expenses of the center.
During that time, the director of the center was the "sole owner and intervenor" in one of the accounts in which public funds were deposited.
According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in its complaint, 86% of the income received, approximately 148,110 euros, was withdrawn in cash. In addition, it points to the diversion of 863 euros to personal accounts of the person in charge of the center, as well as the justification of expenses in concepts "disproportionately high, with respect to the occupation of the center and the comparison with periods in which it was directed by other people".
The Prosecutor's Office has also put the use of money for the payments of the minors in the spotlight. For more than two years, the director of the center extracted a total of 12,171.40 euros as payments to migrant children, but the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office highlights that she allegedly did so "without providing proof or receipt provided by the minors".
"The concept of payments to minors between the period directed by the defendant and the one directed by other people is completely disproportionate", assures the Prosecutor's Office.
The center of La Santa
Meanwhile, in the emergency device of La Santa, the Insular Council of Lanzarote paid, between 2018 and 2021, more than six million euros. Of these funds, only 764,055.64 euros were transferred to the bank accounts administered by the director of the center.
In both centers, the Prosecutor's Office highlights "a notable difference between the public money received for the management of the centers and the one entered by the Fundación for the expenses".
