The former mayor of Yaiza and vice president of the PNL, José Francisco Reyes, was imprisoned in Tahíche last Sunday by order of the judge of the Court of Instruction Number 2 of Arrecife, but this is only the first step of what could be coming in the next few weeks.
Once sufficient evidence was obtained that the former southern mayor allegedly received economic benefits for granting dozens of illegal licenses, the investigation now goes further, in search of the businessmen who supposedly paid to obtain those permits that did not conform to the law.
For the moment, new citations for witnesses and also for new defendants have already begun to emerge from the courts, whose names have not yet been revealed. And the utmost discretion of the Court and the Prosecutor's Office is marking this new phase of the judicial investigation, in which not even the arrest of Reyes and his family or their subsequent imprisonment was officially confirmed.
The new citations come after the statement given by Reyes last Sunday before the judge, after being arrested along with his wife and three of his children, and spending four days deprived of liberty and held incommunicado in police facilities.
In his appearance before Judge María Dolores García Benítez and prosecutor Ignacio Stampa, the former mayor would have had to face the data collected against him during more than three years of investigation, and especially the report of the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit of the National Police (Udyco), which two years ago received the green light from the Court to track the assets of Reyes and his environment.
And after having to answer for documents that would prove that in recent years he and his family have spent hundreds of thousands of euros whose origin would have no justification, and that would come from allegedly criminal activities linked to urban corruption, the former southern mayor could have decided to start talking, revealing some data or some names.
In short, it would be a possible attempt to facilitate his difficult situation or that of his family, who have also been dragged into this case, with the indictment of his wife and three of his children for alleged money laundering crimes.
Benefactor and beneficiaries
"If someone charged for delivering illegal licenses, someone paid to obtain them." That is the basic premise that has given rise to the new lines of investigation, and on which efforts are now focused.
And the focus is on the beneficiaries of some 30 building licenses and extensions of others that expired between 1998 and 2003, on which this case focuses, which have come under suspicion of corruption. In total, 10,000 new tourist beds for hotels and apartments that were authorized in the south of the island, going against the Island Plan of Lanzarote, the reports of the Cabildo and even the reports of the technicians of the City Council. Some were even granted on the same day they were requested.
Therefore, the first objective was to try to demonstrate that José Francisco Reyes did not limit himself to granting those illegal licenses for no reason, but in exchange for something.
The "plot"
Until now, the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, the secretary of the City Council, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and Pablo Carrasco Cabrera, from the Technical Office of the Yaiza City Council, in addition to Reyes himself, were charged in the case.
The first three are accused of alleged crimes of urban prevarication and bribery, while the former mayor also faces charges of embezzlement of funds, influence peddling and money laundering.
The Public Prosecutor's Office considered that they were all part of a plot that from the authority of the Mayor's Office, the technical advice and the law, with the nexus as a lawyer of Fernández Camero between the City Council and the developers, organized the granting of illegal licenses, allegedly in exchange for money.
And once the investigation has yielded sufficient evidence to try to demonstrate that extreme, the list of those involved could continue to grow, depending on the possible new statements of Reyes himself and the evidence that continues to be found. The operation enters its final phase.
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