The company Instalaciones Eléctricas Conejeras (Inelcon) has been in the spotlight of the Prosecutor's Office since the end of November 2011, when an anonymous complaint was received warning of the payment of several allegedly illegal invoices by the Arrecife City Council to different companies. And in the list and documentation provided in that complaint, several payments to this company were also included, which came to charge more than 250,000 euros only for different services provided in the Christmas of 2010, including several that had nothing to do with electricity.
This has been revealed by the lifting of secrecy of a part of the summary of the Montecarlo case, in which the administrator and founding partner of Inelcon, Carlos Lemes, appears as a defendant. In the prosecutor's brief that appears in that part of the summary, it is requested that the businessman be summoned to testify as a defendant, along with other people who have yet to go through the Courts. Along with Lemes, this part of the case requests the indictment of the comptroller Carlos Sáenz (currently in pre-trial detention), the former mayor Cándido Reguera, the former councilors Eduardo Lasso and Isabel Martinón, the councilman José Montelongo and a Festivals technician.
In that letter signed by the prosecutor Ignacio Stampa, the "large billing" of two companies of the same businessman (Inelcon and Señalcon) is denounced, "without processing contracting files and for the provision of services of all kinds between 2008 and 2011". A period in which up to three different government groups passed through the City Council (the PSOE-PIL, the PP-PIL-PNL and the PP-PSOE). According to the Prosecutor's Office, there was a splitting of invoices to avoid the legal contracting procedures established for those amounts, "as well as an inflated of the invoiced amounts".
In addition, there were even warnings from the technicians of the City Council. Specifically, the head of the Contracting department, Elena Martín Martín, issued a report on January 31, 2011, when she had the competence of the Purchasing area, in which she indicated that during the month of January of that year several expense proposals had been presented for an amount of 166,592 euros, all of them for the "realization, assembly and disassembly destined for Christmas decoration", describing each of them and reporting negatively to the approval of said expenses. In her report, she warned that these payments violated the Public Sector Contracts Law and the bases of the Arrecife City Council Budget.
Great "magnitude"
In his letter of complaint, signed last March, the prosecutor warns that given the "magnitude" of the investigation into Inelcon and the invoices it charged to the Arrecife City Council, "a more thorough and detailed analysis is required", although in that letter he already gives some examples to support his request for the indictment of businessman Carlos Lemes.
Mainly, it focuses on the payments related to Christmas 2010-2011. On those dates, the company charged the City Council invoices for very similar concepts related to Christmas lights but, despite being an electrical installation company, it was also paid for different services within the Cavalcade of Kings, including costumes and accessories.
Among the invoices detailed by the prosecutor in his complaint, there are two for the same concept: "Assembly and disassembly of Christmas motifs in rental regime with p.p of transport, maintenance and small materials". One is for an amount of 55,266 euros plus VAT, and was presented to the City Council on December 23, 2010, and another for 53,924 euros, presented on January 25, 2011. In each one, different streets of the city are indicated.
In addition, between January 3 and 10 of that same year, Inelcon passed other invoices to the City Council for concepts such as "Assembly and disassembly of Christmas decoration", "assembly and disassembly of Christmas lights in trees of Arrecife", "in entrances of neighborhoods"; "complete clothing for cavalcade of kings", "personnel and accessories for Cavalcade of Kings", "activities during the acts of the Christmas campaign" and "animation of the Cavalcade of Kings.
A "fraudulent" increase of 22 percent
In total, that entire batch of invoices totaled about 145,000 euros, to which must be added the two previous invoices, of more than 50,000 euros each, not counting the VAT. And in all of them, according to the prosecutor's complaint, not only was an "elevated price of the service" established, but also a "fraudulent" increase of 22 percent, for concepts that should not be included in a service contract.
Specifically, Inelcon applied to all invoices 16 percent of general expenses and 6 percent of industrial profit, as if they were invoices for works, when the prosecutor argues that they were really for services, which should not include these charges. In fact, he emphasizes that in other invoices for "assembly and disassembly", the company does not apply those percentages.
In addition, the prosecutor adds that in some invoices that Inelcon charged for other parties, specifically Carnival, "the company itself comes to recognize the reality and the alleged fraud of the nature of the service", when in one of the invoices it says "for services in the Carnival parties of 2011".
Despite recognizing that it was a service, Inelcon also charged an extra 22 percent to the invoice as if it were a works contract. In total, for that Carnival invoice, the company Instalaciones Eléctricas Conejeras charged 14,049 euros from the City Council. In the concept of the invoice appeared the organization of "facial painting workshops, masks workshops of the carnival, balloon twisting and animated dolls of Minni and Mickey during the act of the children's Carnival, six big heads in traditional parade, these being old woman, old man, pepeye, witch, king and queen, three hostesses during the course of the parties and coordination of the participating personnel".
Recognition of invoices in a plenary session with warnings
Some of the Inelcon invoices were paid at the end of the last legislature, during the pact between the PP, the PIL and the PNL, in which Cándido Reguera occupied the Mayor's Office, Eduardo Lasso the Department of Festivities and Isabel Martinón the Department of Finance.
However, other invoices were paid already in this legislature, during the government of PP and PSOE, in which Reguera continued to occupy the Mayor's Office and José Montelongo was in charge of Finance. During that stage, specifically on November 18, 2011, an extra-budgetary recognition of debt of multiple invoices was approved. Among them, were some of those that Inelcon passed for the Christmas of 2010.
In that session in the City Council, the opposition warned that the payment of those invoices was "against the Contracts Law", and also questioned whether it had been supervised that the works were actually provided. However, both the comptroller, Carlos Sáenz, and the then councilor of Finance, José Montelongo, defended these payments.
Many more invoices investigated
The prosecutor's letter also refers to other invoices from the same businessman, and that many times do not even appear signed by technicians, but by "trusted people" who "seem not to have that condition or qualification to supervise the provision of services".
Among the examples cited in this complaint, the Prosecutor's Office also points out a proposal for expenditure amounting to 10,328 euros to buy "street sweeping carts for road cleaning". The only offer that was proposed was from the supplier Promhostel Canarias S.L, but, however, it was Señalcon that ended up presenting the invoice to the City Council.
Like these, there would be many other invoices from both companies, and "especially from Inelcon", charged to Arrecife. And on them, the prosecutor warned in his complaint, dated last March, that it was necessary to continue conducting a "thorough" investigation.
