PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort
Two and a half hours after the Seprona agents arrived this Friday at the Stratvs winery, all the premises have been sealed, thus complying with the order issued by the judge of Court Number 5 of Arrecife, Silvia Muñoz, who has agreed to "the total closure of the Stratvs complex and the suspension of any type of activity within it".
The agents have given the property time to remove the merchandise and different material from the store and the bar, including cash registers and refrigerators. Several trucks from different companies of Juan Francisco Rosa have approached the winery and have been taking the boxes, since from this Friday, it will not be possible to access the facility again.
When they have finished taking everything out, the agents have been sealing each of the premises, until finally putting a last seal on the main access barrier. In her order, the judge warns that non-compliance with this resolution "could constitute a crime of violation of a precautionary measure and/or disobedience to judicial authority".
As for the duration of this measure, she indicates that it will be maintained for the duration of the investigation and until the case goes to trial, although for a maximum period of 5 years.
The "profit", "exclusively from the company"
In her order, which consists of 19 pages, the judge argues the reasons that have led her to adopt this precautionary measure, which was requested by one of the parties involved in the case. Specifically, it was a member of the Negrín family who requested the closure of the winery, after denouncing an alleged crime of usurpation of real estate, since he owns a part of the farm where this facility was built.
During the hearing, the Public Prosecutor, the popular accusation (represented by the Urban Transparency Association), and even one of the defendants in the case, who is a technician of the Cabildo and is represented by the lawyer of the Island Corporation, joined his request for closure.
Two days after that hearing, the judge has issued an order in which she agrees to the precautionary measure and rejects the arguments put forward by Juan Francisco Rosa's lawyer, Felipe Fernández Camero. "Allowing the continuation of the activity, protecting the measure on economic, lucrative and/or tourist grounds is not reasonable, given that, weighing the interests at stake, the protection of the environment, social order and the avoidance of criminal continuity must prevail in any case over a profit that, until now, has reverted exclusively to the operating company", the judge argues in her resolution.
"The person who played with fire"
The prosecutor, Ignacio Stampa, also stated along the same lines during the hearing, in which he stated that "if the closure of the winery is agreed, the Justice will not be responsible for the unemployment of the people who work in it, but the person who played with fire".
In his intervention, of which the judge reproduces several parts in her order, the Prosecutor's Office detailed the "accumulation of illegalities" that has surrounded this facility. "Reality surpasses fiction, in the sense that it is an authentic and permanent deception during the last 15 years", the prosecutor pointed out, stating that this facility is a "challenge to the Administration of Justice".
A challenge that "continues to be maintained to this day, and with publicity, because none of the activities that are being carried out in the winery and that are planned, none of them, is authorized", added the Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday, two days before the closure was finally made effective.
"Stratvs operates in the exercise of a criminal activity"
In her order, the judge points out that there are "rational indications of criminality" and that "Stratvs operates in the exercise of a criminal activity, whose activity lacks any type of authorization, lacking any activity and control from the administrative and sanitary point of view". Regarding the latter, the order places special emphasis on the alleged illegal discharges of wastewater and the consequent contamination, about which several reports warn.
However, although the alleged crime against the Environment has played an important role in this decision, the judge lists many more. On the one hand, she recalls that what was requested at the time was permission to rehabilitate a house and build a warehouse of 900 square meters, and what ended up being done was to demolish the house and build a larger building for a store, cafeteria and tasting room; as well as building an underground restaurant, kitchens, terrace and toilets; another upper terrace of about 570 square meters, retaining walls and terracing of hundreds of meters in length and different heights; warehouses, laundry, staff rest areas, meeting rooms, parking and paving of ramps and, above all, an industrial winery of about 2,500 square meters. And all this without a license, and with a permit only for a warehouse of 900 meters, which could not even have been authorized, according to the investigation.
In addition, the judge points out that there are "indications of a crime not only of usurpation" of the Negrín family, "but also of fraud and falsehood". In this regard, "by way of example and without intending to be exhaustive", the judge points out, "we can cite the repeated simulation of the real identity of the promoter, the false contribution of the data of the cadastral plot, the certifications of works in accordance with the project against reality, the changes in the cadastral ownership, the fraudulent alteration of the boundaries, the repeated constitution of mortgage guarantees on a property simulating that the winery is built on it when it does not conform to reality, and others whose tortuous procedure points to the fact that there would be full awareness that the works and activities were and are incompatible with the affected land".
Even, according to the judge, "it has been intended to create the appearance that Rosa Marrero, through her companies, owns the land on which she carried out the construction, a circumstance that is particularly relevant in the present case, not only because there are legitimate owners who have appeared as injured parties, but because (Juan Francisco Rosa) has not justified to this day the slightest ownership of the registered property" on which the winery is based.
