Madrid City Council agreed with the commission agent that part of the masks would be sent to his wife’s hospital

“I continue to work with all the resources I can, which is not a little bit to serve as soon as possible, very aware of the responsibility. Those words came from businessman Alberto Luceno’s cell phone on March 26, 2020. Three contracts for masks, tests and gloves signed and partially paid for by Madrid’s Municipal Burial House, commission agents were negotiating the details with City Council, and back then, they were already eagerly awaiting their million-dollar loot from a Malaysian supplier. But the sequence of messages between Lucienio and Elena Kolado, a high-ranking city council official, lasted until November this year, and on the way a businessman, now a defendant, managed to ask each family member to take four COVID tests. Purchasing and planning the consistency that 50,000 masks would end up in the hospital where his wife worked.

It was at the end of April 2020, when the masks were already in Madrid, and when Alberto Luceno and Luis Medina received collections from Malaysia at their bank in Madrid called the “Mask” or “Commission”. Lucienio asks Collado: “What you are asking for, please, is that when the tests come, I can have 4 for each member of the family.” He replies, “Of course.” The messages received a month later imply that this test delivery was not carried out, when already in May Lucienio explains that he and Luis have already passed the tests before.

The least profitable for the City Council was the agreement to bring the tests. According to the Court of Auditors, each test cost more than 16 euros, which is the highest price paid by the City Council in our country in the first weeks of the pandemic. From there came a large commission for Lucienio, and besides, in the end most of the tests were not so sensitive and therefore useless. The relationship between Luceno and Collado via WhatsApp lasted until at least November 13, 2020, ten days after the prosecution launched an investigation.

This was not the only reference in these conversations to Alberto Luchenio, his family, and the material he himself had brought from China at exorbitant prices. In April 2020, just days before the arrival of the FFP2 masks they had purchased, he and a council official agreed to send 50,000 masks to a hospital in Puerta de Hierro, where his wife works as a nephrologist. “I sent you a letter about the donation. But you did not answer me. “When will 50,000 masks arrive in Puerta de Hierro?” Lucenio asked his interlocutor. “As soon as he arrives, he goes straight to Charo Hospital,” Kolado said a few days ago.

Two days later, Luceno himself coordinated the arrival of the masks at the hospital. “I managed to coordinate with Roberto at 10:30 in Puerta de Hierro,” he told her. Shortly before, Elena Collado gave him contact with Roberto Moreira. A few days later, Luceno boasted of successfully sending masks to the center: “My wife called me at the hospital to thank me, I admire all the specialties,” he said. “My wife tells me that the heads of other specialties approach her every day and tell her that they are excited and thank the city council and me,” he said.

According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecution, the purchase of masks was also one of the big businesses for Luceno and Medina. They bought a million masks for more than six million euros and each agreed a one million commission. The margin was so high that Luceno, behind his partner, took over two million more.

Messages for months

As this newspaper reveals this Wednesday, the messages from Luceno and the City Hall official reflect the call of the Mayor, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, to Commission Agent Luis Medina Abascal when he did not know he was a Commission Agent and, accordingly. To the board member, to thank him for donating more than 100,000 masks. The mayor initially argued that the call was made after the contracts were signed and it is true, but later high-ranking Elena Collado continued to exchange messages with Alberto Lucienio for months.

The messages, which primarily concerned details of the delivery of material barely coming from China, customs problems and the delivery of masks to the hospital where Luceno’s wife worked, but also other things.

They tried, for example, to return a shipment of gloves that did not fit what the council had bought. They also referred to the price of these nitrile gloves. In September and October, they were still discussing how to get the reagents in Spain, which would likely help improve the sensitivity of the tests they purchased months ago. And the last message, which featured a new offer of antigen tests, failed: “Tell me nothing about the antigen tests I sent you,” says Lucienio. Elena Colado replies: “Sorry, I bought a Madrid Salon 60,000 a month ago.”