The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, in an act on June 20. AFP7 via Europa Press (Europa Press)
It has taken more than a year for the Madrid City Council to present the receipt proving a second payment of to the investigative court No. 30 of the capital, which is investigating a second fraud involving the sale of defective masks to the consistory in the worst case of the pandemic 1.25 million euros to Sinclair and Wilde, a company based in New York and run by Philippe Haim Solomon, a man whom the Spanish police considered untraceable. According to the summary opened in March 2021, judge Jorge Israel Bartolomé has so far only considered a first installment, also of 1.25 million, as proven, based on the documents presented by the Metropolitan Police themselves. But this week the municipality of José Luis Martínez-Almeida gave him the document proving a second payment.
On April 29, EL PAÍS revealed the existence of this new bank document dated April 14, 2020. This document was included in another summary: the one opened before the Investigative Court 47 of Madrid for the alleged fraud of the businessmen Luis Medina and Alberto Luceño, who raked in millionaire commissions for selling sanitary supplies to the city council during the first phase of the Covid crisis. For the opposition, this second payment order is crucial because it underlines that the damage to public coffers from the Sinclair case would rise to 2.5 million and because, in their opinion, it shows the Almeida government’s lack of diligence to prosecute alleged scammers.
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The chronology of events is essential to understand this case and the struggle it triggered within the consistory between the PP and the left parties. On March 23, 2020, following the imprisonment, City Council gave the green light to the purchase of half a million face masks from Sinclair and Wilde for €2.5 million. Just a day later, on the 24th, the first payment of 1.25 million – half the agreed price for the goods – was made according to an initial payment order from Bankinter, which was included in the report the Metropolitan Police gave to the Numbers Court sent March 2021 when the scam was reported. However, the second receipt dated April 14 did not appear among the papers presented at the time.
That second installment was issued after “irregularities” were found in the purchase, according to police. On April 7, the commercial and financial director of the Municipal Funeral Home (SFM), through which the masks were purchased, sent an email to the bank to request “reimbursement of the 1.25 million euros transfer made”. ” —related to the March 24 payment—. According to the city council, these “irregularities” found had nothing to do with the quality of the masks that had not yet arrived, but with “irregularities” resulting from “delays” in shipping.
Among the new documents sent this week by the Consistory to Court No. 30, to which EL PAÍS had access, and including the “Proof of the second transfer made on April 14, 2020, of 1,250,000 euros (50 % )” the Almeida government also encloses a letter from Solomon dated March 28 this year, in which he states the “impossibility” of the 500,000 masks arriving by the specified date due to “force majeure issues.” The City Council received that Material finally on April 23 of the same year, as confirmed by the general director of emergencies, Enrique López Ventura.
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Subsequently, on May 4, the chief of operations of the Municipal Emergency Plan announced in writing that, after analyzing the masks, “there is sufficient evidence to consider that they do not comply with the technical requirements or with Spanish or European regulations”. Months after this, unsuccessful attempts were made to contact Philippe Haim Solomon and the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation which was referred to the court in March 2021. He often opened the case, but filed it in July last year because it was impossible to know Solomon’s whereabouts. However, on June 3, 2022, the judge reopened the investigation after receiving a new report showing the businessman was living in England.
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The existence of this second scam was not known until it was uncovered by EL PAÍS on April 14 this year after the Medina and Luceño case came to light. On April 28, two opposition parties (PSOE and Más Madrid) called for his appearance in the Sinclair case as a public indictment and the reopening of the investigation, which Podemos would later join. The city council did not call for his appearance as a victim until May 10. Two days later, the municipal funeral home would do the same, the summary said.
Finally, at the June 3 reopening of the case, Judge Jorge Israel Bartolomé ordered the Consistory and the SFM to “remove all documents related to the engagement of the mask group under investigation, including an authentic copy of the administrative files, as well as emails or similar communications received at administration of the case, negotiation, completion of the case, or subsequent claims; formalized contract and control measures by the municipal intervention or other internal or external bodies”. That newspaper then asked the city council why it hadn’t already submitted the receipt for the second payment to the magistrate, to which the local government replied that it had until June 27 to deliver it. On that very day, a year and three months after the case was opened in court, the court received it.
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