Diputació under suspicion
A Barcelona judge orders raids on provincial council and the arrests of 30 people over the alleged diversion of two million euros in public funds
Some 500 Spanish police officers yesterday conducted a series of raids on companies in different Catalan cities as well as the Barcelona provincial council, or Diputació. The raids were ordered by a Barcelona judge to clarify an alleged diversion of public funds amounting to two million euros from 2012 to 2015. Sources in the interior ministry at first linked the operation to the funding of the independence bid, but were later forced to rectify.
By the end of the raids, some 30 people had been arrested, most of whom were later released, such as the former head of the Diputació and ex-mayor of Martorell, Salvador Esteve. Yet, five people are today expected to appear in court: Joan Carles Garcia Cañizares, Diputació deputy and mayor of Tordera, Jordi Castells Masanés, general subdirector of the Catalan government’s Local Cooperation section, Jonathan Jorba, head of the Catalan government’s Cooperation Office, Víctor Terradelles, president and patron of the CATmón Foundation and former head of international relations for the defunct CDC party, and Joaquim Ferrer Serra, PIMEC head until 2014.
The case began in 2016 on the basis of an anonymous warning of irregularities in the adjudication of funds, which has led to allegations of influence peddling, diversion of public funds, document forgery, grant fraud and perversion of justice. Some 28 grants are under suspicion of being diverted from development aid for places like Latin America, Morocco and Bosnia.
The investigation also links Francesc Dalmases, MP for the JxCAT group, with the organisations under investigation. Dalmases was not detained because the judge requires more information.