The ‘punch’ of the masks is heated with movements of money and some Whatsapp that splash Almeida

The son of the Duke of Fair, louis medina, did not waste much time in disguising his suspicious movements with his bank accounts. He began to draw Spain the money that he had obtained commission by masks for him City of Madrid just two days after receiving the payment in dollars for a total of 912,800.97 euros from the malay company with which he and his partner, Alberto Lucenocarried out the operation that is being investigated as alleged millionaire scam to the consistory.

This is deduced from a report issued by the Tax agency in February 2021 that works in the summary of the case that the judge instructs Adolfo Carter and to which he has had access ‘The Newspaper of Spain‘, in which these collections appear as the only foreign exchange operations carried out that year by the aristocrat in his bank accounts. These collections appear dated March 31, 2020 for an amount of 684,627.62 euros and 228,173.35 euros with the concept ‘MASK’ and were received in one of the accounts of Deutsche Bank that Medina had in Spain.

The money came from Malayan Banking Berhad (MayBlank) and at 48 hours, on April 1, Tax authorities fixes the first of the three transfers for just over 93,700 euros that the businessman had in his possession to another account of his in the same bank, but in Netherlands. This first shipment was followed by two more payments in June and August of that year for a similar amount: 93,700 euros to the Deutsche bank account in the Netherlands on June 22, 2020 and a third for 93,682.50 euros on August 4, this year.

Those movements were the ones that raised the suspicions that have placed Medina and his partner between a rock and a hard place. and to mayor of Madrid in a good political rift because a cousin of Almeida’s lawyer was the contact for the ‘pitch’, according to Anticorruption. The Madrid president, however, denied having knowledge of the major.

In fact, the complaint that led to the filing of the complaint investigating this matter came from the Commission for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Monetary Offenses (Sepblac), dependent on the Ministry of Economic Affairs, after the alert made by this bank after the succulent commissions from Malaysia were entered. The investigation by prosecutor Luis Rodríguez Sol began to develop in November 2020.

Thus, Medina is exposed to being investigated for a crime of concealment of assets in the event that it is shown that he has emptied his accounts and made the loot of the ‘pitch’ disappear for which he charged a million dollars in commissions on account of covid material contracts with the Madrid City Council. At the moment he is indicted for fraud aggravated, documented falsehoodly money laundering.

Article 257 of the Penal Code condemns with sentences of between one and four years in prison the act of patrimonial disposition “that delays, hinders or prevents” the effectiveness of an embargo or an executive, enforcement or judicial proceeding”. This conduct could include, according to the same sources, the surprising situation that Judge Carretero has found when requesting the accounts from Medina’s bank and for which he will surely ask him in the interrogation scheduled for April 25.

In the account of Deutsche Bank in which the commission was entered, only 247.26 euros have been found, and there is also no trace of the two bonds for a total amount of 400,000 euros that he would have acquired with the commission obtained in the operation.

Faced with the possibility of preventively seizing him – to ensure the civil liability to which he would have to respond if he was convicted – the magistrate gives the parties five days to urge “the adoption of new precautionary measures of an economic nature to ensure the responsibilities civilians”.

The magistrate has already admitted the appearance as private accusations, that is, as direct victims of the alleged crimes, both from the Madrid City Council and from two parties in the municipal opposition, Podemos and PSOE. He is waiting for Más Madrid to complete some paperwork to let him also be a party to the procedure.

Medina obtained as a commission in obtaining these contracts (by means of a letter accrediting him as the exclusive agent of the manufacturing company for the supply and procurement of medical devices) a total of 1,000,000 dollars from Malaysia and transferred them to a personal account, which has already been emptied as verified by the case instructor. With this money, according to the complaint, she acquired an Eagle 44 model yacht, called ‘Feria’, which he registered in the name of a Gibraltarian company whose ownership he shares with his brother; in addition to bank bonds.

The summary also includes a message between the investigated Alberto Luceño and the person in charge of purchases of the Madrid City Council, Elena Colladoin which he tells him that Luis Medina had had a telephone conversation with the mayor of Madrid, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeidaduring the negotiation for the purchase-sale of the masks.

“Luis has already told me that Almeida called him,” the businessman tells the municipal official. The comment takes place on March 26, 2020 after this high position of the consistory summoned him to check if everything was correct in the contracts related to the purchase of the masks.

This conversation would have taken place while Luceño was negotiating with Elena Collado the purchase and sale of the masks. In the messages, Elena Collado repeatedly thanks Medina’s partner for his efforts and even tells him: “We are in your wise hands“.

The mayor of the capital has acknowledged the call, but assures that it was only to thank him for the donation of 183,000 masks within the set of masks that included the contract. However, the call took place four days before the brokers collected their share and more than 22 days before the arrival of the material, reports Roberto Bécares.

The messages also include a conversation from April 2020 in which the city council’s purchasing manager and Luceño agree that a total of 50,000 masks were intended for Iron Gate Hospital where his wife works, reports Europa Press.

For the moment, the head of the Investigating Court number 47 of Madrid has highlighted the seriousness of the crimes of aggravated fraud, false documents and money laundering charged to Medina and his partner in the plot, Alberto Luceño, and stresses that such conduct could committed, “at the height of the covid pandemic, with thousands of deaths daily”.

The description of the scam in the Penal Code is something that seems to fit perfectly in what happened in the Madrid city hall, where according to the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s OfficeLuceño introduced himself as import expert of products from the Asian market, with factories in China at his disposal, and as the exclusive agent of the Malaysian company, which was not true.

the almost €12 million that the masks, gloves and tests to detect covid cost the municipal coffers were set by Luceño as the price of the products and imposed on the city council, taking refuge in its “false” position as manufacturer and exclusive agent.

“In doing so, it hid that a high percentage of the price offered (approximately 60% in the case of masks, 81% in the case of gloves and almost 71% in that of tests) corresponded to commissions that the defendants they would perceive.

Besides of markup, the material that arrived was not adequate in some cases. The gloves that were received in Madrid on April 8, 2020 were of poor quality and they only reached up to the wrist, when they had been ordered up to the elbow. In addition, the city council itself was able to verify that a pair of gloves of the same quality and characteristics as those received, for which the Madrid council had paid 2 dollars per unit, were offered to the public for 0.08 euros.

As for the masks, the real selling price was $2,689,300, a sum that the brokers artificially inflated to make a profit of $4 million, that is, 148% of the real price of the product. Of the 250,000 tests received, 75,000 had a sensitivity level so low that they were unusable. As far as the false documentation is concerned, it was allegedly committed both before the city hall and in the banking entities that asked the businessmen for explanations after receiving the large commissions close to 6 million euros per transfer from Malaysia.

Regarding money laundering, his investigation is the one that justifies that the Anticorruption complaint refers to the specific assets that could be acquired with the money illegally obtained in the ‘pitch’. Also due to the possible commission of said crime, Judge Carretero has ordered a preventive seizure of said assets.