The former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, faces a request for 25 years in prison in the Yate case, which for years has investigated the massive granting of illegal licenses in the municipality. Last week, the Prosecutor's Office presented the final indictment against the twelve people who could go to trial in this case.
Along with Reyes, his wife and three of his children are accused, in this case for money laundering, having benefited from the allegedly illicit money obtained by the former mayor in exchange for granting illegal licenses. The Prosecutor's Office is asking for five years in prison for Reyes' wife and another five for three of his children. In addition, it is demanding a fine of almost 9 million euros for the Reyes family (6 million should be paid by the former mayor and the rest, in different amounts, by his wife and three children).
In addition, it also requests that various assets of the family be confiscated, including a house in La Laguna and another in Barcelona, with their respective parking spaces, the boat "El Pachi", five vehicles, money from ten current accounts and even furniture and appliances that they acquired with cash and of unknown origin, including decoration items, nautical material, various furniture and even a spa.
Prison and disqualification for three technicians
Along with Reyes and his family, three municipal technicians are also accused. The most serious accusation falls on the secretary of the Yaiza City Council, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 6 and a half years in prison and 24 years of disqualification, for alleged crimes of urban planning prevarication and embezzlement. Added to this is the municipal surveyor Alfredo Morales, for whom the prosecutor is asking for two years in prison and 10 years of disqualification for urban planning prevarication, in relation to the report he issued to grant the license to the Marina Rubicón Sports Port.
The third accused technician is the head of the Technical Office, Antonio Lorenzo, for whom imprisonment is not requested but disqualification, for a period of ten years. In his case, his indictment is linked to his intervention in the file that allowed the Playa Blanca Partial Plan to be approved, which has already been declared illegal by the Courts.
Other four defendants
Along with the former mayor, his relatives and three technicians from Yaiza, the Prosecutor's Office has filed charges against four other people: José Rafael Mesa Ferrer, Manuel Benito Mesa Ferrer, Antonio Marcelo Machín and Simeón Camacho. The first two, as tax advisors, allegedly helped the mayor to launder his accounts through a "shell company", Sea Sun Lanzarote S.L., in which they were in charge of accounting. For them, the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 4 and a half years in prison.
The other two, according to the Prosecutor's Office, belonged to the "inner circle of friendship" of José Francisco Reyes and helped him hide his assets, despite the fact that they "knew the criminal origin of the funds they were handling." Allegedly, they did so through the company Acuimar Cachazo, in which one of Reyes' daughters appeared as owners, along with Antonio Marcelo Machín and Simeón Camacho. Both face a request for 3 years in prison.
The accusation
The writing that has been made public this Friday, and that is signed by the dean prosecutor of the environment of Las Palmas, Javier Ródenas, and the prosecutor assigned to the environmental section in Lanzarote, Ignacio Stampa, who investigated the case from its beginning, has two clearly differentiated parts.
On the one hand, an accusation is made for crimes of urban planning prevarication consisting of the granting of construction licenses for hotel establishments between 1998 and 2003. On the other hand, crimes of bribery, money laundering, activities and negotiations prohibited to public officials, embezzlement of public funds and documentary falsification are imputed, "fundamentally related to unjustified patrimonial increases and concealment thereof through interposed persons or companies", according to the Prosecutor's Office.