The latest report from the Guardia Civil The Cerdan casewhich has put new evidence on the table on the alleged conspiracy led by Santos Cerdán to award public works in exchange for bribes, once again points forcefully against Javier Herrero, director general of the Highways during the time of the socialist José Luis Ábalos as Minister of Transport. The investigators highlight the “pressure” exerted by this former senior official, indicted at the National Court, to influence the suspected projects in favor of the alleged corrupt network. Javier Herrero has already denied his involvement before the judge.
The figure of the former general director of Autostrade gains weight as the synthesis progresses. In this new police analysis, the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard highlights that the alleged plot elevated Herrero to that position after the arrival of the PSOE in La Moncloa. And, based on several intercepted communications, the agents add that the suspect “exerted a lot of pressure” in 2019 on Pedro Saura, then Secretary of State for Transport, to “advance” in a suspicious tender in Seville – work under investigation had been carried out on the Centenario bridge in the Andalusian capital.
“On April 22, 2019, Koldo García and Santos Cerdán had a conversation in which the former informed the latter that Javier Herrero had had to put strong pressure on Pedro Saura to accept the ‘Seville’ tender, even warning him that ‘he was seen from afar’,” reports the armed institute.
The summary names Herrero as the alleged facilitator of the rigged jobs. “It would have allowed the manipulation of contractual processes,” wrote Judge Ismael Moreno, instructor of the National Court. Among the evidence collected against him are several messages in which he exchanges information with Koldo García about prizes. In one of them, dated 22 April 2019, the day on which the financial offers for the concession of a work in Logroño were opened, the director general of the Motorways blurted out to the minister’s advisor: “Bingo!!!! In Logroño”. And eight days later, she wrote to him: “Looks like we played bingo in Asturias.”
The Guardia Civil believes that the corrupt network has even attempted to “modify the tender evaluation system” for public contracts to “have greater control” over them. And, to support this thesis, the researchers rely on another message that Herrero sent to Koldo García: “We are trying to change the evaluation system of future contracts. To be able to have more control. But we have to work with the state auditors and lawyers”, the director general told Ábalos’ former advisor.
In his testimony before the judge, Herrero distanced himself from the irregularities and denied having participated in the fraud. Herrero acknowledged that Koldo García asked him for information about the works, but stated that he provided him with information once it was already public. In fact, Herrero said he believed that Ábalos’ councilor was only asking him out of political interest (not to influence the process) and to be able to make the progress of the work electorally profitable.
