The former PSOE deputy asked a businessman for money directly: "Bring me a pen"

Former PSOE deputy in Congress Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, the apex of the political plot of the Mediator case, asked for money directly from one of the businessmen in the plot.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
28 February 2023 Tuesday 22:27
15 Reads
The former PSOE deputy asked a businessman for money directly: "Bring me a pen"

Former PSOE deputy in Congress Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, the apex of the political plot of the Mediator case, asked for money directly from one of the businessmen in the plot. From the pre-analysis of the telephones seized from the investigated, it is clear that the former socialist parliamentarian, without the participation of intermediaries, asked Antonio Bautista Prado to bring him "a pen" because he "did not have one". To which the businessman would have replied that when he went to Madrid "he would take two".

This is clear from the order by which Fuentes Curbelo was released after giving a statement. A release dictated by the investigating judge "by legal obligation", since the Prosecutor's Office did not request his entry into provisional detention despite "the danger of destroying evidence."

The person in charge of the Investigating Court number 4 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife points out that the infrastructure created was able to operate thanks to the figure of the former deputy, in addition to the division general of the Civil Guard, in provisional prison. Fuentes Curbelo, says the instructor, offered his chances in exchange for a consideration. "He lent himself to as many situations as were put to him": he stayed in hotels financed by the investigated companies, he accepted invitations to restaurants "contextualized in the illegal purpose of the criminal group", as well as he could have sought the award of contracts subject to the investigation. investigation. All this, in view of the conversations obtained from the mobile phone that was intervened in his arrest.

Conversations with the mediator of the plot have also been extracted from his terminal, in which he provided up to 17 times his bank account numbers – that of the sports association he presided over or his own – so that he could send them to the different businessmen. "who aspired to obtain benefits derived from the influence displayed" by the former deputy of the socialist group through the payment of commissions. These are some significant ones: "Hey, I need something injected into the club, even if it's minimal." “Nothing has been admitted to the club for me.” “I already got you the soccer team thing from us.”

The judge believes that the benefits obtained by Fuentes Curbelo, nicknamed Tito Berni, would not be limited to payments from the association "but would go much further through other more economically grateful benefits." Among them, as the instructor has stated, the installation of solar panels for free on the farm that he shares with his wife.

In the order, the judge presented the urgent need to carry out a patrimonial investigation of the former deputy, which had not been possible until then due to his status as a registered