The Spain’s Anti-Corruption Prosecutor agreed on Tuesday to open the investigation to elucidate if there could be some kind of irregularity in the mask purchase contract that the Community of Madrid, chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso –of the conservative Popular Party (PP)–, granted to a company related to the brother of the regional leader.
This decision comes after knowing that the PP leader, Pablo Casadoordered Ayuso to be investigated internally for possible irregularities in the contract in question, which unleashed an internal war within the conservative formation.
After this information was made public, several parties from the Madrid left -Más Madrid, PSOE and United We Can- took the case to the Prosecutor’s Office, which must now decide if there is sufficient criminal evidence to continue with the investigations against Ayuso.
Specifically, the Prosecutor’s Office agrees “to carry out some proceedings that, without initially targeting natural or legal persons, allow the criminal significance of the reported events to be confirmed or ruled out,” the Sputnik news agency reported.
According to the decree opening proceedings, “the complainants propose different hypotheses about their possible participation in alleged crimes of influence peddling, embezzlement, prevarication and negotiations prohibited to officials”.
This decision bursts into the full collapse of the PP and Casado’s leadership.
The motives
The suspicious deal is a award to the company Priviet Sportive SLled by a childhood friend of the Ayusos.
The regional government granted him in April 2020, the worst moment of the pandemic, a direct contract of 1.5 million euros for the purchase of masks and, as the president came to recognize after much reluctance, her brother had a “commercial relationship” with that company.
After days without clarifying what that transaction had consisted of, Díaz Ayuso issued a statement in which he admitted that his brother charged at least 55,850 euros, plus VAT, for “the steps taken to obtain the material in China and its transfer to Madrid”.
Casado opened an internal investigation in the PP, whose figures contrast with those of Madrid.
The president of the PP considered that Ayuso’s brother acted as an intermediary to obtain a commission of hundreds of thousands of euros and that he used Priviet Sportive as a figurehead.
Más Madrid also contributed in its complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office, 11 cell phone messages that it received last November “anonymously” and that pointed in the same direction.
“I send you a serious case of corruption of the brother of Díaz Ayuso. I turn to you because I do not know how to report it to Anti-Corruption nor can I expose myself personally,” the message indicated.
“At the worst moment of the pandemic, April 2020, the Community of Madrid awarded a 1.5 million contract for protective suits and masks from Ifema (the Madrid fairgrounds, used at the beginning of the health crisis as a hospital),” he added.
“He did it to the Priviet Sportive company, owned by Daniel Alcázar, friends of the Ayusos. A footwear and clothing company that changed its CNAE days before. And when he entered the payments from the Community of Madrid, he made a transfer worth 300,000 euros to Tomás Diaz Ayuso,” he continued.
The CNAE is the National Classification of Economic Activities that allows the classification and grouping of the producing units according to their activity.
“If the intermediation would already be criminal, paying 25% of the amount of a contract means that Alcázar is a figurehead for Tomás Ayuso. It is a crime, if not there are many and they are trying to cover it up with false invoices, ”said the SMS that reached Más Madrid, according to the local media outlet El País.
After these accusations, the PP is seized by an internal crisis, whose origin is in the confrontation between the main leader of Madrid and the president of the party, who is losing more and more power.
The pressure on Casado is maximum.
Of the 17 territorial leaders of the conservative party, At least 14 issued a statement on Tuesday in which they demand that an extraordinary congress be held and that Casado be replaced as president.
