The exchange of messages between the high official of the Madrid City Council Elena Collado and the commission agent Alberto Luceño sows Doubts about the veracity of the alleged donation of 138,000 masks to the Consistory headed by José Luis Martínez-Almeida. Precisely the Madrid mayor, according to the summary, sent a letter on April 2, 2020 to Luceño and his partner in the operation under suspicion, Luis Medina Abascal, in which he announced that of the 1,238,000 masks purchased from the malaysian company Log Marketing Sdn Bhd a total of 238,000 would have zero cost for the Madrid City Council. For this reason, the councilor congratulated the intermediaries for having carried out an alleged “very generous donation offer” for the benefit of the Madrid City Council.
However, in the documents provided to the Court of the magistrate in charge of the case, Adolfo Carretero, it is specified that in reality the donated masks would be 138,000, a lower figure that the mayor himself has recognized at a press conference.
According to the messages, which appear in the summary and to which El Periódico de España, a newspaper of the same group, Prensa Ibérica, has had access, that this newspaper, on April 10, 2020, the representative of the Consistory informs Luceño that were already prepared to fly from Hong Kong (China) “50% of the masks and the rest of the glovesHowever, continues Elena Collado, the City Council needed “the commercial invoice” from the selling company, “for customs clearance purposes”.
“The exact amount”
A few hours later, the intermediary Luceño demands the “exact amount” of KN95 masks from the Madrid high official, to which Elena Collado replies: “638,000. The part that is a donation must be invoiced without commercial value, but for the value of the product of those that have commercial value”. Then this commission agent completes, literally: “There is no VAT on international invoices. But they will pass commercial invoice with new total value“.
The next day, Elena Collado asks the intermediary if she had been able to get the invoice. Luceño then assures that the supply company did not understand what the Madrid City Council was demanding: “They don’t understand very well. One worth what you take out, which is 638,000?, TRUE? And the donation of 238,000 separately in another invoice? The question is whether the donation is included in those 638,000 or the donation of 238,000 is separate.
“They are supposed to donate 238,000”
Luceño later transfers the doubts that the company had, which according to the messages, did not know if the invoice should add or subtract from the total number of masks those that had to be given away: “Does 638,000 units + 238 units equal 876,000 units? This is what they ask. Or subtract instead of add“.
And a few minutes later, after passing “the hour of applause”, Elena Collado forwards a message to Luceño that she had previously received from an unidentified person: “Hello Elena, what is going to fly is 638,000. Since they are supposed to donate 238,000, in this first game 500,000 purchase masks and 138,000 donated masks would correspond. The Chinese have divided the total merchandise into four invoices, three for 300,000 and one for 338,000 masks.”
And that is when Elena Collado warns her interlocutor that despite the fact that the invoice for the 138,000 donated masks should not have commercial value, the final price that had to be put on the masks in the document was the same as the others, the that were supposedly paid: 6.68. However, Luceño transmits later that her interlocutor in the Malaysian company did not understand him. Later, after making changes to the invoice, she concludes: “Please, confirm that with this change everything would be correct, or if something else needs to be modified to do it all at once”. “That’s right”, concludes Elena Colladowho assures that he had already sent him “the invoice for the 600,000”.