The accounts of the largest cancer research center in Spain will be investigated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, according to tax sources. The agency will open investigations into alleged irregularities in hiring at the National Cancer Research Center (), as announced Abc and EL PAÍS has confirmed.
The former manager of the organization, Juan Arroyo, and other employees are accused of having directed an alleged scheme of rigged, inflated contracts awarded to friendly companies, according to a complaint filed by a former CNIO director who has been fired. According to the calculations of this former executive, around 20 million euros could have been stolen from the CNIO’s public coffers in a decade.
This Tuesday, the CNIO board unanimously agreed to eliminate the positions of the current former manager and two other executive positions close to him at the proposal of the organization’s new manager, José Manuel Bernabé. The new person in charge of the accounts of this public center, with a budget of about 40 million euros per year, also presented a report to the Prosecutor’s Office on November 18 with his own analysis of the accounts.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has reviewed the information in the complaints and appreciates that the facts are of “particular importance” to initiate investigation proceedings possibly for the crimes of embezzlement, influence peddling and prevarication, although this point will emerge during the investigation.
According to the complaint filed with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in June by the former CNIO worker, to which this newspaper has had access, Juan Arroyo, who was managing director of the organization for more than 15 years, was allegedly involved in granting irregular contracts to friendly companies. The other two people fired were positions very close to him.
The complaint warns of “a set of patterns” in the hiring of services and personnel at the CNIO. Since 2007, a group of “satellite companies” has emerged with the apparent goal of “being awarded all contracts” for outsourced activities. An example is Gedosol, founded by the former chief of staff of the CNIO, which took more than 15 million in contracts, according to the complaint. Zeus SL, created by the center’s former technical director, would have invoiced 5.4 million euros. Alaos ITL SL, linked to the organization’s former purchasing director, had a turnover of 11 million euros. And there is also Navestalia, which manages an industrial warehouse in San Agustín de Guadalix, near Madrid, allegedly linked to the former managing director. The companies in the network had the CNIO as their only client and supposedly won practically all the tenders they participated in, according to the text of the
The only one of these companies that has responded to this newspaper’s questions is Alaos, which denies the accusations.
According to the story given to the Prosecutor’s Office, in some cases these companies were in charge of hiring personnel to provide services that the CNIO previously provided, such as secretariat for research groups. This allowed it to continue hiring staff despite the restrictions that the center has suffered during the years of the crisis. On other occasions, companies received tens of thousands of euros for work never done, always according to the complaint, which is 120 pages long.
The whistleblower’s analysis points to alleged chained contracts for 49,900 euros or 14,900 euros, just below the limits that guarantee greater control, as provided by the Science Law and the center’s internal contracting guide, respectively. One of these contracts, close to 50,000 euros, was to provide masks. When they arrived, they had to be discarded because they were practically impossible to put on due to the shortness of the rubber bands, says the complainant. According to their analysis, there are indications of fractionation amounting to more than one million euros between 2018 and 2024.
