The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard arrested the businesswoman this Monday in the framework of the so-called ‘Hydrocarbons case’ Carmen Panowho has publicly claimed to have delivered 90,000 euros at the PSOE headquarters on behalf of the commissioner of the Koldo case, Víctor de Aldama.
In addition to Carmen Pano, three other people have been arrested in an operation launched by the UCO in which there have also been several registrations in companies in Madrid, Zaragoza and Sevilleas investigation sources have informed EFE.
Early this Monday, UCO agents registered the companies it has in Calatayud (Zaragoza) Luis Alberto Escolanopartner and front man of Víctor de Aldama, investigated in the Koldo case, and who was the one who rented the apartment that he enjoyed from March 2019 to September 2021 JRG, the woman with whom former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos maintained at that time “a particular relationship”, according to the description made of it in a report by the Civil Guard.
Legal sources have confirmed to Europa Press that the agents are also carrying out searches in Madrid, Seville and Toledo, although they do not detail whether they are also in a company owned by Escolano himself.. These are part of the case in which the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz investigates an alleged fraud in the hydrocarbon sector.
This operation is being carried out by the Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard and directed by the Central Court of Instruction No. 5 of the National Court, in coordination with the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
The UCO’s action is taking place in parallel to the statement of businessman Víctor de Aldama in the Supreme Court as an investigator in the ‘Koldo case’. Judge Leopoldo Puente investigates the alleged irregularities agreed upon during the pandemic for the purchase of medical supplies in the alleged awards.
It was last October when Judge Pedraz agreed to provisional prison for both De Aldama and his partner. Claudio Rivas for his alleged participation in a fraud to the Public Treasury of 182 million of euros in the hydrocarbon sector in two years.
“The criminal organization that has been dismantled had a important corporate structure with which it would execute the tax fraud; “This structure was modified by those responsible in order to achieve a greater degree of restraint and ensure the perfection of fraud,” reads the statement from the Civil Guard.
“Likewise, they had a parallel company structureboth in Spain and in third countries, for the subsequent laundering of amounts obtained criminally,” the press release continues.
Judge Pedraz agreed to the release of the former after his voluntary statement in the ‘Koldo case’, but Rivas is still in jail. In this case – which remains secret – the judge investigates both as responsible for the criminal organization, as deputy director Maria Luisa Rivasas well as other cooperators and a series of figureheads located in the administrative bodies of the supplying companies.