The retired general Francisco Espinosa Navas, one of the main investigators in the corruption case known as Mediator and the only one who is currently in provisional prison, pocketed more than 200,000 euros in four years, as stated in his diaries where he pointed his money A and money B and that the police found during the search of his home on February 14.
In the summary to which La Vanguardia has had access, Espinosa had 120,000 euros noted in his papers as an initial balance in 2017, while in 2021 he accumulated 337,000 euros. For the investigators, this amount cannot have been accumulated solely with his salary as a Civil Guard official and taking ordinary expenses into account.
In a report prepared by Internal Affairs of the Civil Guard, the agents point out that in recent years, when their work with the organization intensified, the payment in their current account of their ordinary expenses decreased.
While in 2019, Espinosa withdrew 14,300 euros in cash for consumption expenses and bill payments, in 2022 this amount was reduced to 3,400 euros. These expenses were progressively decreasing in the intervening years. According to the report, “a significant decrease in habitual daily spending has been detected; what could find a reason for being in the management of cash capital, as has been highlighted with the discovery of the 61,110 euros and whose origin is presumed unknown.
This last amount was found in several bundles of bills hidden in a shoe box and among the clothes in a drawer, money that the judge in charge of the case believes to be of "illegal origin." The judge in the case considers that the indications that make her suspect that this money comes from the commissions that the general allegedly charged businessmen in exchange for facilitating business with other commercial companies or with the European security assistance project for countries of the Sahel, which he directed in the last years of his career.
As stated in the summary, the search also found a 9mm submachine gun from the Civil Guard hidden on a shelf in the office behind various books.
The investigators accept the version of the organization's mediator, the also investigated Marco Antonio Navarro Taraconte, who maintained at the police headquarters that Espinosa was a "beneficiary", like the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, alias Tito Berni, of amounts paid by businessmen in exchange for negotiations with the Canarian public administration. According to the mediator, "the influences of the general and the deputy were not disinterested, but were paid with parties or income, always paid by the employer."
Precisely, Navarro Taraconte continues to point out other politicians with whom he would have had a relationship outside the investigation. Yesterday he pointed out that the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín (PSOE), received a commission for contracts awarded from the Sports area and assured that both have met to talk about "trapicheos".
