The deputy judge who issued the order that led to the arrest of the former president of the Provincial Council of Almería, Javier Aureliano García, for his alleged participation in a conspiracy aimed at awarding contracts irregularly and collecting commissions or favoring them for this, believes that the management of cash by the former PP leader is one of the indications that justify his “full knowledge, acquiescence and participation” in those events. The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Guardia Civil found further evidence indicating alleged laundering of such bites during searches carried out last week as part of the second phase of the operation case masks. Among these, an envelope with 7,620 euros in cash in his name, found in his sister’s home, also included among the suspects, and a document entitled “Income declared and collected in cash”, with a table with figures and financial years separated by years with references to apartments and a company whose assets belonged to all his brothers.
“This sheet could be an attempt to justify the management of cash by Javier Aureliano, linking it to the declared rental income and participation in the community of property”, interprets the UCO in the report to which this newspaper had access, on that table in which entries of up to 4,869 euros in 2021, 8,817.46 in 2023 and 11,701.88 in 2024 are collected, with references to “apartments”, income from rental of properties; and “farms”, benefits for 25% participation in the García Molina CB community.
One of these apartments, inherited from his father, was 100% purchased by García from the rest of his brothers, but had a rent for which his sister, María Rosario, collected cash every month. The judge’s order records the payment in banknotes of the mortgage installments corresponding to the purchase of a property by García up to a total of 19,750 euros. The deposits were made from ATMs in Roquetas de Mar and El Ejido to an account belonging to the former popular leader’s sister. During the search of his apartment, the UCO found an envelope with 7,620 euros in cash together with a sheet of paper handwritten in red ink with the phrase: “This money belongs to Javier Aureliano”. Other banknotes in blue ink were also found with amounts of 450 euros, 100, 500 and 220, which, as María Rosario herself declared to the agents, corresponded to money she had withdrawn for personal expenses.
For the investigators, according to their report, that envelope with cash addressed to the former president of the Provincial Council of Almeria reinforces the police’s hypothesis on the manipulation of cash by Javier Aureliano and on “its possible use to justify non-bank income”, a hypothesis also shared by the investigating judge.
It is not the only wad of banknotes found by the UCO during searches carried out on Tuesday last week. Rodrigo Sánchez López, son of the former mayor of Fines and another of the five arrested that day, was found with 7,900 euros in his home in that city, as well as five rifles that could constitute an illegal weapons possession crime for investigators. His father had 1,750 euros seized from his home in Roquetas de Mar.
In these documents, the UCO was able to compile new documentation that reinforces its involvement in the conspiracy of irregular assignments of the Provincial Council through its company OYC in connivance with the nephew of the former councilor, Óscar Liria, who was then third vice-president of the Provincial Council and who took advantage of his position as head of Urban Planning of that body to facilitate these illicit practices.
The investigators based this on the WhatsApp exchange between Liria and her uncle in which they agreed to participate in tenders together with other companies and obtain the award by submitting the most advantageous offer. A practice that, according to UCO estimates, has been occurring since at least 2018. “Marta (Sánchez, a woman who appears de facto as head of the OYC) tells me that she only has the machinery and the Líjar park,” the former mayor of Fines writes to Liria. “Exactly, present it now,” he replies.
In the searches carried out in the offices linked to Sánchez López, the UCO found documents relating to the premiums linked to the Acelera 2020 Plan —created by the Provincial Council for Economic Recovery after the Pandemic and one of those that the investigator orders to investigate in his car—, the agents discovered “handwritten notes with the reductions that should be made in each case: 2%, 4% and 5%”, a modus operandi that the investigators interpret as an example of how Liria gave instructions to companies controlled by his uncle and cousin.
A practice that is repeated with other commercial companies which the judge has ordered the UCO to investigate, as in the case of the Albaida construction company. “There are indications that Albaida’s actions would also have been implicated in the fraudulent awarding of contracts in favor of other companies, having acted in various cases as an accompanying company by making simulated offers”, says the Guardia Civil in the report on a company that shares its headquarters with Hispano Almería, another construction company that was at the center of a macro-case that also had the PP as its epicenter, in addition to the illegal hiring, the alleged illegal financing of the party and its modus operandi in the awarding of public works was similar.
