Agents from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard appeared this Friday at the headquarters of the Acciona company in Madrid, Bilbao and Seville with a court order issued in the framework of the Ábalos case, sources close to the investigation have informed elDiario.es. The court order has been issued under the secrecy of the proceedings, within the framework of a separate piece, and includes authorization to search the headquarters. The sources consulted confirm that the UCO agents are going to remain for hours inside the three company buildings.
The name of the construction company appears mentioned six times in the order of Judge Leopoldo Puente who sent Santos Cerdán to prison last July. The magistrate said that the obtaining of contracts by the Entrecanales family construction company, “acting in a joint venture with other smaller companies,” represents the “eloquent common denominator” of the plot.
The magistrate’s common thread was completed in the fact that in the cases under investigation, Acciona and the other companies with which it participated forming a UTE never presented “the best economic offer, invariably favored in the bidding by subjective evaluation criteria,” wrote the Supreme Court judge.
The company’s registration in Madrid includes the search for information related to Justo Vicente Pelegrini, the head of Construction in Spain who was fired after his name appeared in the court case. The company reported on June 16 that it was dismissing Pelegrini due to “a lack of diligence in the exercise of his management responsibilities.” This was the manager to whom Fernando Merino, former head of the company for projects in Navarra and La Rioja, reported and who was fired in 2021.
Unlike Pellegrini, Fernando Merino is accused in the Supreme Court of allegedly channeling bribes for the plot worth 620,000 euros. An audio recorded by Koldo García in November 2023 includes, according to the UCO, a “possible reference” to Pelegrini when the current Minister of Transport was forming his team: “Santos [Cerdán] has gone to the Ministry of Transport to place a couple of people from Justo” (…), “in possible reference to Justo Vicente Pelegrini, CEO of Acciona Construction in Spain, Portugal and North Africa.”
The June requirement
The Supreme Court magistrate investigating this ramification of the Koldo case – he has already sent former minister Ábalos to the bench for alleged rigging in the sale and purchase of masks in exchange for personal benefits – considers that Acciona is at the center of the plot and has gone so far as to question a former executive. Last June, it issued a request for information to the Entrecanales family company to request information.
That order from the judge already pointed to several works in Logroño, Seville, Sant Feliu de Llobregat and Murcia and how their alleged “improper award” could have led to “prizes and commissions” for Koldo García and José Luis Ábalos, although some of them would be “pending collection.” At that time, the Supreme Court judge chose to require the information and not send the UCO to register Acciona because it could be an “invasive” measure since the former director under suspicion no longer works there.
The investigator of the Koldo case then asked Acciona for all the documentation related to that former executive and his corporate email, as well as “all the documentation in both physical and digital format” of five public works awarded to Acciona in a joint venture with other companies: two awarded by the General Directorate of Highways and another three by ADIF, the public railway manager.
Records in Donosti
UCO agents also register two cooperatives that share headquarters in Donosti. These are Noran and Erkolan. The latter invoiced Servinabar – the company of the accused businessman Antxon Alonso – about 258,000 euros, according to the reports of the Provincial Treasury incorporated into the Supreme Court summary. Noran, the other cooperative that Antxon Alonso and Koldo García shared, invoiced Servinabar 2000 more than 700,000 euros. Servinabar connects these last records with that of Acciona since Antxon Alonso’s small company attended the tenders in a joint venture with Acciona. Investigators suspect that the large construction company would have used Alonso to gain the favor of Cerdán and for him to influence the awards.
An internal document appeared in the Servinabar registry in June that indicated that Cerdán controlled 45% of the construction company Servinabar 2000. The former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE has always denied that it was valid and alleged in court that it was a project to retire from politics in 2015 that was never launched. Servinabar 2000 has received (at least) seven awards from the Government of Navarra and from areas controlled by three different parties, PSN, Geroa Bai (PNV and Socialverdes) and Contigo/Zurekin ( Podemos, Batzarre, IU and others). In total, according to this newspaper’s estimates, it has participated in awards totaling 86 million euros (with VAT 104 million) mainly in joint ventures with Acciona, of which 10% correspond to the Navarrese company, 8.6 million.
On the other hand, Servinabar hired Cerdán’s sister and paid her about 22,000 euros. Belén Cerdán later worked for the Erkolan cooperative, one of the two registered this Friday in the capital of Gipuzkoa.
Source: www.eldiario.es
