Just four days have passed since the Spanish government imposed a state of emergency and the death toll from the coronavirus has already risen to hundreds, though the worst was yet to come. In the days of confusion when the entire population was stranded in homes and hospitals, it was in danger of collapsing when two prospective entrepreneurs saw what private financial schools call a “business opportunity.” Or rather: the ability to pocket several million euros of state money through their contacts and the need to supply health workers and police to prevent them from becoming infected. They only needed seven days to do the business that brought them six million euros in profits, the arrest of which is now being sought by the anti-corruption prosecution.
One of the mediators is Louis Medina Abascal, a regular contributor to tabloids and fashion magazines, the son of Nati Abascal, Duke of the Market and model. The second, Alberto Lucienio, a friend of Medina Abascal and who wanted to keep most of the loot. Like many others, in those days they realized they had the connections they needed for the worst pandemic of the century to make a millionaire business and with little effort. “Every crisis is also an opportunity,” warns one of his marketing tips at a business school run by Lucienio, a dubious businessman who also had a career in private education.
The Madrid City Council had excellent characteristics for this: it facilitated the conclusion of the contract by increasing control over these tenders and offered entry through the mayor’s close friend, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida.
On March 20, Almeida handed over the contract for anti-Covid-19 material to the Madrid Funeral Home, a municipal company that could pay money to suppliers that the administration could not. The rest of the road is paved with a congressionally approved alarm that empowered governments to issue multimillion-dollar contracts without competition to expedite the purchase of medical supplies that were in short supply in hospitals and in markets turned to international markets. The best contender.
It was on the same dates, according to an anti-corruption complaint, that Lucieno and Medina saw an opportunity to receive “excessive and unjustified economic benefits”: like all administrations, the Madrid City Council desperately sought all sorts of materials for officials. And health personnel, police and firefighters who were the necessary authorities during the crisis.
Medina takes the first step. Contact Carlos Martinez-Almeida, a lawyer who works in the private sector and at the same time the mayor’s cousin and friend, who according to the prosecution – which also emphasizes that he has enjoyed the status of a famous character. In public life – united by “friendship”. The Madrid City Council, which has been hiding the investigation since it began more than a year and a half ago, denies it, but the anti-corruption organization has made it clear in its letter that Medina “took advantage” to enter a consortium with Almeida’s cousin.
This is where the versions of the prosecutor’s office and the municipal government fit. Almeida said her cousin contacted City Council Coordinator Matilde Garcia Duarte, who provided her with a general email. Mary claims that Medina will send the first e-mail on March 18, offering material, and the next day. It was in those days that Spain lost more than a thousand people.
Medina’s version is such that she gets the phone number of Elena Collado, who is responsible for purchases at the Consistory, and talks to her directly several times. Collado, in charge of transparency and the director of the funeral home, at the time, is the one who centralizes all calls from suppliers and donors and takes orders through a public company.
As is well known about the case, Medina’s role ends with this. He got the phone he needed and handed it to his partner in this business opportunity, Alberto Luceno. He puts a million euros in his pocket for this work. “Ordinary commission,” he said in an interview with El Confidencial.
From that moment on, it’s another mediator, Lucieno, who is leading the negotiations with Elena Kolado, whom he will represent as an expert businessman in imports from Asia, factories in China, and the exclusive representative of Leno Malaysia’s company. The reason he carries it to the point of consistency is pure and simple altruism. He claims that he is doing so, according to the anti-corruption complaint, “driven by the desire to cooperate in the fight against the pandemic.”
Today we know that all this was a lie. Neither an expert importer, nor factories in China, nor anyone representative. His wish to help fight the coronavirus was also false. Lucienio then takes a key step: he promises masks, gloves and tests, but warns of high material prices at the time. This is the most serious lie: prices were not so high, but he inflated that the commission accrued 60% on masks, 81% on gloves and 71% on tests.
Despite everything, he achieves his goal. The Funeral Home on March 24 closes the mask contracts with Luceno; These tests and gloves in 25, when up to 5,000 have already died in Spain. Business is closed. Nearly 16 million state money has been invested in just seven days and without any control, no one in the City Council has done any significant check on Luceno. Contact with City Hall, a false alibi, an ad hoc character, and a background pandemic to initially receive a commission of 11 million; For three Medins and eight Lucenos. Poor quality of material forces them to reduce this quantity.
Almeida herself boasted of purchasing the material on March 23, when she announced that masks, tests and gloves were going to arrive in Madrid, and criticized the government for not sending her the material she requested: “The material did not arrive. Therefore, we made a decision last weekend to purchase supplies in the market. ” Market was a friend of his cousin and his partner.
Payments are made by nine transfers, which run from March 24 to April 6, when the last deposit is made. By that day Spain had already buried 15,000 people because of the corovirus when the last payment would come; This figure was increasing by hundreds of deaths every day.
Paradoxically, when a business closes and these millionaires enter their accounts, problems begin. On April 8, Gloves goes to the funeral home, but he is not promised. They have a poor quality and different size than agreed. A senior official overseeing procurement finds eight-cent gloves of the same model in a Madrid supermarket. Lucien sold them for a couple of dollars.
Elena Colado tries to contact Lucienio, who starts not answering the phone. And that’s then he turns to the first mediator, Luis Medina Abascal, to warn him that his friend (and partner) will run into trouble if he does not heed his claims. Lucieno is preparing another lie for this case. He says the managers of the company where he works agree to compensate for the change in the quality of the gloves by lowering the price; Not true to what the businessman is actually doing is returning his and Medina’s commission (a total of four million euros, the only thing they could not collect). Nevertheless, the price paid by the Madrid City Council was four times the value of this material.
Also wrong were the tests they sent under the second contract. Only a third of the 250,000 purchased worked. When Lucienio became ugly, he changed his strategy. This time he did not want to give more money, so he promised to supply new reagents that would improve the reliability of the tests. “There is no evidence that new reagents have been shipped to date or that the sensitivity of the tests has been corrected otherwise,” the anti-corruption official said.
Despite this deception, there is no evidence that the Madrid City Council requested a refund of Lucienio’s money from the commission, nor an internal audit to determine what happened. Neither the court nor the prosecutor’s office was notified.
An anti-corruption investigation shows how unwilling he was to give Lucienio more money. For defective gloves he had to return three million euros and did not intend to lose another euro. To guarantee the remaining payments made by the Malaysian company, he informed the directors that Medina would not collect his share. It was a unilateral decision that sought to secure the remaining transfers to their accounts.
In fact, partner infidelity started much earlier. Both agreed to share the booty halfway. For the tests, for example, they agreed to pay a fee of $ 950,000 each. But for Luceno it was a bit much, so he agreed on his own that he was going to add an additional 1.2 million, about which he did not inform Medina.
The same thing happened with the masks. One million was agreed upon for each, but Lucienio later agreed with the Malaysian company that he would take another two million.
Eventually, as a result of the glove accident, two agents of the commission put € 6 million in public money in their pockets. For one Medina, five Lucenos. Already on the money accounts, they had to continue cheating. Their banks asked them for an explanation regarding the income of these millionaires and they responded with documents which, according to the prosecution, were forged. Luceño prepared them and put in fake dates and signatures to convince the banks that he had worked for a Malaysian company for years.
Since then only pleasure remained. Lucienio spent six days that summer at a hotel in Malaga, which cost him 00 10,000 a night. He bought expensive cars, one of them for 355 000 euros, several Rolex and a house in Pozuelo. Medina, with a smaller portion of the cake, bought corporate bonds and performed only one whim: a Leonardo Eagle 44 yacht, a 13-foot-long sail with a wooden deck and a blue hull. He named it “Fairy” in honor of the Duke, who has been inherited from his family for more than 450 years and bears the greatness of Spain.
Source: El Diario
I’m an experienced news author and editor based in New York City. I specialize in covering healthcare news stories for Today Times Live, helping to keep readers informed on the latest developments related to the industry. I have a deep understanding of medical topics, including emerging treatments and drugs, the changing laws that regulate healthcare providers, and other matters that affect public health.
