The businessman Luis Lleó, whose alleged bribery attempt to unblock the construction of the Costa Roja urban development project gave rise to Operation Union, may have also incurred in different irregularities and even "criminal offenses" related to tax evasion. This is what the UCO maintains in one of its latest reports, dated January 18, in which it indicates that at least six people were working as tax advisors to Lleó. And among them are two magistrates, who at that time were part of the Constitutional Court as lawyers and who, according to the UCO, could have incurred in incompatibility.
One of them, Ángel Aguallo Avilés, was one of the "intellectual authors" of a report in which they recommended to Lleó the steps to follow so that one of his companies, Residencial Costa Roja, would be taxed as a patrimonial company, obtaining a much lower taxation than that carried out in the general corporate tax regime, despite not meeting the requirements for it. The other author of that report, who is the one who signs it, is an official of the Seville City Council, Ignacio Pérez Royo, who works as a Tax inspector.
In that report, they proposed to Lleó the dissolution of the Residencial Costa Roja company and the entry of other people as shareholders. The latter was done with the purchase of shares by two people, although the UCO emphasizes that it could have been a fictitious operation, "carried out exclusively in a documentary manner".
"Simulated business"
The person in charge of executing all the steps detailed in the report was another of Lleó's advisors, Jerónimo Campón Montero, an economist with an office in Arrecife, who was even part of the Board of Directors of the Costa Roja company. In one of the emails intercepted by the UCO, Campón explained to Lleó that one of the two people who was going to buy shares in the company did not really have capital for it and that he was "working on the formula to provide them (at least documentarily) with some significant income in January and February 2007 so that, later, in the purchase of their shares there is no possible simulated business".
In another email, one of the advisors acknowledges that with another operation they are going to undertake to avoid paying taxes, "a very forced solution would be defended, with the risk of being sanctioned in case of inspection or administrative verification".
"Jerónimo Campón himself considers that some of the operations carried out in Residencial Costa Roja could be considered by the Tax Agency as tax evasion", the UCO maintains.
Payments through third parties
The UCO report indicates that both the judge Ángel Aguallo Avilés and Ignacio Javier Sánchez Yllera, who advised Lleó on "various legal matters", could have incurred in "some type of incompatibility", since they were lawyers-magistrates of the Constitutional Court. In this regard, it points out that the law prevents members of this body from combining that position with "any other function, destination or position, as well as professional practice and intervention in industrial, commercial or professional activities, including consulting and advisory activities".
However, in light of the documentation seized in the searches during Operation Union, the UCO maintains that they provided that advice to Lleó and charged for it. Furthermore, according to the police report, they tried to camouflage those payments, avoiding that they were "reflected directly in the name of the person providing the advice".
The UCO also points out that "the possible participation in the alleged irregularities from the fiscal point of view carried out by Residencia Costa Roja cannot be ignored, in view of the recommendations made by Ignacio Pérez Royo and Ángel Aguado Avilés", magistrate and Tax official in Seville, respectively, who were the "intellectual authors of the report".
The other two people that the UCO points out within that advice to Lleó are Manuel Matamoros Hernández, a lawyer with an office in Madrid, who was in charge of the "general legal advice" to Luis Lleó, and the lawyer María José García Vizcaino, whom she identifies as the partner of the magistrate Ignacio Sánchez Yllera.
According to the police report, all of them "are linked through the different documents seized". In those documents, "the sending of invoices to the lawyer María José García Vizcaino of the payments made for the provision of services related to Residencial Costa Roja to Ignacio Pérez Royo and Ángel Aguayo Avilés and the sending through Ignacio Sánchez Yllera of documents and consultations made by the drafters of the tax report of Residencial Costa Roja" can be seen.
A judge with controversy
One of the judges mentioned in the UCO report, Ignacio Sánchez Yllera, came to the media in the early 90s. At that time, the magistrate was a prison surveillance judge in Valladolid and decided to release a prisoner, Juan Manuel Valentín, despite there being contrary reports. Shortly after, the former prisoner raped and murdered a nine-year-old girl, Olga Sangrador.
The case raised enormous controversy throughout Spain, since Juan Manuel Valentín had accumulated several convictions for similar crimes. At the time, the judge declared that he was "absolutely devastated" by what had happened, although not by the decision he made, which he insisted was very "deliberate", but by the human drama that had been unleashed.
Despite what happened, the judge was appointed shortly after as a technician of the General Council of the Judiciary, and later he was head of cabinet of the Vice Presidency of the Government of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega and lawyer of the Constitutional Court, assigned to the Provincial Court of Madrid.
As for the other magistrate who advised Lleó, Ángel Aguallo Avilés, he belongs to the Supreme Court, in the administrative litigation chamber, and has been a lawyer of the Constitutional Court and professor of financial law in Córdoba.
