then third vice president of the Almería Provincial Council, for having allegedly collected bribes of between 200,000 and 400,000 euros from a health supplies contract for two million euros awarded by that supranational entity to the company Azor Corporate Ibérica, owned by Kilian López, investigated for drug trafficking and arms trafficking. Thus opened the first case masks of Spain which, four years later, is still in the investigation phase.
This investigation has given rise to new investigations that point to the awarding of allegedly irregular works by the Provincial Council to a network of companies, suspicions that led on Tuesday to the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, among them, Fernando Giménez, and which culminated this Wednesday with the arrest of Liria – on which a good part of the investigations carried out throughout this time pivot -, as confirmed by investigation sources.
The rest of the detainees—five in total, including Liria’s uncle; and his son, in addition to three other people, who have been released, but continue within the process as being investigated—have spent the night in the cells of the Almería Civil Guard Command, where secrecy regarding their situation is total. It is expected that throughout the morning they will receive a visit from their respective lawyers to be brought before the court this Thursday, as reported by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA). It will be then that it will be determined whether they will be placed in provisional detention. Meanwhile, this Wednesday the searches continued at the City Hall of
Liria was already in prison in the days after his arrest in 2021. Then, Civil Guard agents found 26,750 euros at his home distributed in three envelopes and in different items of clothing. That same day they also found the councilor’s son with 119,945 euros in cash, when he left Liria’s parents’ house.
The former vice president of the Provincial Council is the one who proposed in the middle of the pandemic that the Provincial Council contract a batch of masks and medical supplies with Azor, whose owner, Kilian López, is also related to his uncle, the mayor of Fines, being the nephew of his ex-sister-in-law – also investigated. The summary contains WhatsApp conversations between Liria and Giménez in which the first urges the second to sign that award: “Your friend with the masks, what language does he speak? Because if he speaks English we can buy a good handful from him,” the second says to the first. Giménez was already charged with this case and the UCO considers that he collected 10% of the commissions obtained from that supposedly fraudulent contract.
Liria and Giménez shared a specific and alternative vocabulary, a “coded language,” according to the report that the UCO sent to the court last May, where the agents inferred that when they referred to the percentage they were going to receive for irregular contracts. But in addition to their conversations, both were in another joint chat with the president of the Provincial Council, called Naranjito In it they also talked about the mask contract. “Óscar… we have to see what you’ve got involved with the masks!!!!”, says the president of the popular Almería party, to which he responds: “Yaaaaaa, but I want you to see how the situation is, man. I don’t want you to see yourself without having material for the residence…”. “You’re going to cause me to set fire to the masks,” Aureliano responds, to which Liria replies with a “Jaaaa,” which Aureliano continues with a “Shut up yaaaaaa.” Liria ends the conversation: “Well man, this is getting very ugly.”
These are the only conversations in which García appears cited in the summary, but that chat is very relevant for the PSOE, which acts as the popular accusation, because it shows that between the three they exchanged information about contracts with a high degree of trust. For this reason, at the end of last October they asked the judge investigating the case to summon the president of the Provincial Council to be able to testify in court. The request also required that their terminals and communications be tapped.
The other statements of the president of the Provincial Council
This Thursday will be the first time that García testifies in court. Until now, he had done so before the UCO investigators, on March 23, 2022, and in the Congress of Deputies, on June 27, 2024, within the framework of the investigation commission on the Koldo case. In both he acknowledged that he had signed the contract for medical supplies and that he had never met Kilian López. The agents then also asked him about Pulconal, another López company to which the Provincial Council had awarded works for 375,939.05 euros between 2017 and 2021. The president maintained that he only had knowledge of that company from the day his third vice president was arrested and that when he asked about the minor contracts, which he signed – like all the resolutions approved by the Provincial Council’s contracting body because otherwise it would be “a true prevarication,” as he stated in the congressional commission—the technicians assured him that everyone was in order.
But and for which he ordered the UCO this Tuesday to carry out searches in private properties, headquarters of public and commercial institutions. In April of last year, the instructor already ordered the Almería Provincial Council to deliver all the documentation related to six contracts awarded to OYC Servicios Urbanos, a company that the UCO considers to be the mayor of Fines, although it is managed through a third person. The judge wanted to clarify whether she had benefited from these works because Pulconal had been previously notified by those responsible for the Provincial Council so that it would not present offers or, on the contrary, compete with other non-competitive ones and thus be able to justify the concessions to OYC.
In this part of the investigation, the messages sent by Francisco Liria, brother of the former vice president who has just been arrested again, and who is also charged, and Kilian López are decisive. “Francis. More works in the Sufli and Ballarque mail [municipios almerienses]we didn’t show up. They just called me from the Provincial Council. Write those two down for when they arrive, let’s not show up,” the second says to the first.
Francisco Liria appears as administrator of a company through which López tried to launder the money obtained from the mask contract – one million of the two million that the Provincial Council paid for the material – and is also linked, with his brother, in the acquisition of a Lottery administration in Adra, through another company and another front man, for which 500,000 euros were disbursed. The UCO suspects that this purchase was made to launder money from bribes. Nor can there be an explanation for the gift of three high-end cars – one for Óscar Liria, another for Francisco and another in the name of another entity also investigated in the plot – nor for the 20,000 euros that the girlfriend of the former vice president of the Provincial Council, also accused, gave as a down payment for a house in Huércal-Overa, where she was a PP councillor.
Meanwhile, in the Provincial Council of Almería it is the first day on which Ángel Escobar, until now first vice president, assumes the acting presidency of the organization. At the main headquarters of the institution, located in the center of the capital of Almeria, there is a much calmer atmosphere than on Tuesday, when UCO agents searched the offices of the president and second vice president of the institution. The workers seek to recover normality beyond the hangover of Monday’s day, experienced with “a lot of pressure” according to one of the employees.
The Popular Party of Almería is locked in tight and has not yet commented on the arrests. Nor did anyone respond to the doorman at its headquarters in the center of the capital late in the morning, located on the third floor of Paseo de Almería. Sources from the formation explain that, for the moment, they prefer not to make statements, despite the fact that more than 24 hours have passed since the arrest of their provincial president since 2021, who is still in the cells of the Almería Civil Guard Command pending being brought to justice.
Moreno Bonilla: “We will make decisions as it evolves”
The president of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, has stated that he will be “forceful” with those involved in the corruption case that affects the Almería Provincial Council. “We are going to wait until Thursday, when they testify before the judge, with the presumption of innocence on the table, but as it evolves we will make decisions,” said the Andalusian leader at the presentation of his book, Coexistence manual, this Wednesday afternoon in Madrid. “We are going to be transparent and forceful,” he stressed, in the face of “unpleasant and sad” news. The Andalusian president has also referred to the cancer screening crisis, which he has acknowledged has caused him “emotionally harm”, but has defended that, despite the “serious error”, he believes that it has been resolved well and “time will put everything in its place”. Inform Elsa García de Blas.
