The corruption plot known as Mediator has fully exploded in the Congress of Deputies like a real time bomb in the middle of an election year. The uncontrolled explosion has caused the word of the key man in the case, the intermediary who was the link between politicians and businessmen, to have turned on a fan to air his word, to which some and others cling depending on the direction with the one that gives the air Word of the mediator, who in one of the conversations collected in the police reports defines himself as "a madman and a liar."
Since it became known that the former deputy of the socialist group Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, his nephew Taishet Fuentes Gutiérrez and the retired general of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas would have formed an organization with which they would have corrupted themselves in exchange for money, travel, food , drugs and sex, the political battle has intensified in the run-up to the electoral campaign. A moment that the mediator Antonio Navarro Tacoronte has taken advantage of to take a step forward and begin to point out –beyond what is known from the summary of the case– politicians from different parties as participants in their raids. The part of the investigation that has come to light, for now, is limited –in its political aspect– to Tito Berni and his nephew. However, the political opponents of the parliamentary arch occupied by the right have taken advantage of the mere words of the mediator to make a case against the PSOE.
In turn, the Socialists have also used some statements by the confessor of the plot to target the popular because some leaders also had alleged contacts with him. The mediator is not going to shut up: for some and others he lies, depending on the day. For both he tells the truth, depending on the day. As he fires at various political targets, his responsibility for the cause dissipates. The apparently perfect strategy: everyone is in the web.
However, Navarro is the vertex of a cause with two branches, politics, at the top of which would be Tito Berni and his nephew, and in the business branch the retired general. Among these three men and the businessmen, mainly from the Canary Islands, who would have agreed to payments in exchange for supposed considerations -subsidies, sanctions file, awards- stands Navarro Tacoronte.
“I already got five thousand pens for the football team […] and fifteen thousand […] and ten thousand more.” These were the terms in which the organization referred to the money that, upfront, businessmen had to pay after the promises of the ringleaders of the plot to facilitate public contracts, put them in contact with larger companies to do business and help them to withdraw million-dollar sanctions from the Canarian government. The mediator obtained businessmen and offered his company to make false invoices and be able to justify the bribes, according to the case.
Before, to give the appearance of influence, they would take company owners to the Congress of Deputies, then they would go to lunch and continue partying the rest of the day. Expenses were borne by the employers. In the police reports, to which La Vanguardia has had access, it is stated that up to 11,000 euros were spent in a single night between dinners, drinks and hostess clubs. This is the part of the summary that has grabbed the most headlines these days, in which photographs with prostitutes, drug use and obscene phrases are mixed.
Tito Berni, as Fuentes Curbelo has been nicknamed, channeled payments from businessmen through a soccer club that he presided over. That is where the thousands of “pens” would end up. But the investigators suspect that the benefits obtained by the ex-deputy were not limited to payments to the association, but that he lent himself to whatever situations were put to him. Even the installation of some solar panels on a Canarian farm that he shares with his wife.
The alleged criminal plot would be complemented by Major General Espinosa, promoted at the end of his career by the Ministers of the Interior and Defense of the governments of Mariano Rajoy. This investigated, the only one in provisional prison without bail, was allegedly using his position in the Command of the Civil Guard of Las Palmas to convey to businessmen high possibilities of management and success in their projects. In exchange, always, for the corresponding commissions.
Within the plot, it seemed that everyone was winning, but after a year of intense relations between each other, trust began to unravel until the threats of complaints, deception and scams began that set off alarm bells for the Police who ended up uncovering the swarm.
The mediator promised the businessmen some pre-sales but first they had to show their willingness. "I need a pen"; "It is a matter of life or death..."; "I need urgently for God's sake"; "It remains on your conscience, I tell you that I need the money urgently", are some of the phrases of the deputy and the mediator. The general even demanded payment for travel, hotel and even work for his lover, according to the investigators in his reports.
The businessmen agreed until the bandage fell off. One of the cheese businessmen made a series of payments to Tito Berni and Navarro in exchange for getting a disciplinary file withdrawn. For his company it was key because otherwise he would not be able to receive government subsidies. The key was held by the deputy's nephew, Taishet Fuentes, general director of Livestock for the insular government. He was the one who could manipulate the sanctions. Up to 27,000 euros was spent between transfers and cash to the plot, to which the payment of parties, hotels and plane tickets had to be added. However, of the 1.7 million euro penalty imposed, only 70,000 euros were reduced, the rest he had to pay. That, added to the difficulty in justifying to the treasury the outflows of money for the plot, caused the bankruptcy of the company.
The reason why he did not help him was because there was another businessman who paid him more to withdraw the sanction and also blackmailed him by pouring tankers of milk in front of his headquarters and stopping buying milk from the farmers. Here he helped himself to the highest bidder.
Between the mediator and the deputy they were looking for businessmen who needed help to get their money. "Chacho, get me farmers who have problems with files," Navarro demanded of Tito Berni, according to the conversations tapped on his phones. From there they began to demand money in the face of promises of a better future for companies. But these claims sometimes had no end: "It's life or death, don't fail me for God's sake," Navarro demanded of a businessman. “Antonio, I only have debts and interest that the bank charges me. I can not continue like this. The one who needs help is me. You've fooled me. I have to return everything”, laments the businessman Alberto Montesdeoca in an exchange of messages.
Another of the businessmen asked them for the return of the 44,000 euros that he had given them after verifying that their businesses had not materialized in the Canary Islands. "Antonio, the usual thing happened today, the advisor asks me for an invoice and I can't tell him lies, so he's going to notify us that we sent money to those accounts and we didn't receive invoices, I'm not going to have problems with the Treasury and regarding the business in Canarias I see that there is nothing, I am going to talk to Juan Bernardo and cancel the company, collect what he has done and return the rest of the money to me, ”José Suárez snapped at Navarro Tacoronte, in March 2021.
A month later, the situation worsened: "Good morning, since the suspicions that everything has been a hoax on your part have been confirmed, the lawyer is going to initiate legal actions to request the return of all the holders of the amounts transferred."
The succession of messages from businessmen threatening to come forward grew in intensity. Another businessman, Raúl Gómez, went from offering “calamari sandwiches” to “local politicians” through a small business, to realizing that –despite the political contacts he claimed to have in the plot– he was being an “asshole”. And the list of defrauded businessmen continued to drop the threat of complaints when they saw their companies go bankrupt. Still, the mediator demanded more money.
“I am only asking you please that I need the money urgently and you told me that with 5,000 euros everything was covered and now you are taking more Raúl things out of your sleeve. Uncle remains on your conscience. I am telling you that I need the money urgently”.
The mediator did not receive a response to this message and four days later he sent him a new reminder, this time along with a photo taken inside a club after a night in Madrid. "I hope you have a memory, I know you do," Navarro warned the businessman. According to the Police in a report on one of the businessmen investigated, "the organization's promises do not progress and their company falls into economic ruin by having to pay the IGIC (Canary Islands Indirect General Tax) of said invoices."
Such was his anger that he threatened to sue the organization if the money was not returned. "These threats to denounce them manage to impress the deputy and cause him to end his relationship with Marco Antonio Navarro, assuming the beginning of the collapse of the criminal organization," the investigators conclude.
In mid-2021 marks the end of the relationship between the mediator and Tito Berni. However, the organization did not stop there. Navarro still had General Espinosa. From what emerges from the summary –so far– is that two legs of the same organization came out of Navarro but were not related. Of all the meetings documented by the agents, no connection has emerged between the general and the deputy, although both had contacts with both the mediator and the businessmen themselves.
Navarro used Tito Berni to move the threads of the open files in the general direction directed by his nephew, as well as to move political contacts both in the Canary Islands and in Madrid after arriving at the Congress of Deputies. On the other hand, the general had high-level business contacts, which would open the doors to smaller businessmen.
Espinosa took the businessmen to the General Directorate of the Civil Guard, then allowed himself to be invited to lunch or dinner and whatever arose. In addition, he demanded plane tickets to fly to the Canary Islands, with a hotel included. However, it also provoked the anger of some businessman, as he recounted in a conversation between the mediator and one of them who was concerned about having to get tickets and reservations with the name of the company.
“...Put on that he has an accident. Car rented in the name of the company, hotel rented in the name of the company, a chick with him in the accident. How is the movie called? The energy people bribed the general to do the work. This is the name of the movie, there is no other. Who are the actors in the film?
