Francisco Correa Sánchez

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Francisco Correa Sánchez (born October 31, 1955 in Casablanca , Morocco ) is a former Spanish entrepreneur.

Life

Francisco Correa Sánchez is a Spanish businessman, namesake of the structured granting of advantages Caso Gürtel , which is why he was arrested by the Spanish authorities in 2009. He was in custody taken on charges of bribery , advantages granted money laundering , tax fraud , criminal associations Education and forgery . On June 11, 2012, he left the Centro Penitenciario Madrid V , thanks to the deposit of 200,000 euros that his mother had paid, subject to a daily reporting requirement. In addition, he retained the suspect's status for the criminal offenses of which he was charged.

His nickname Don Vito is borrowed from Vito Corleone , the author of The Godfather . His last name Correa (German belt) inspired the law enforcement agency to refer to the investigation as a belt case (Caso belt).

Career

In the early 1960s he moved with his parents from his native Casablanca to Madrid, where he started working as a bellhop in a hotel in 1968 at the age of 13. In addition to Spanish, he has also mastered French since childhood, which was useful in his first phase of work when dealing with foreign tourists, when he worked in a travel agency near the PP party headquarters in Madrid. During a package tour to Palma de Mallorca , he met his first wife, María Antonia Puerto Guzmán, with whom he had a son who had cystic fibrosis and who died in 1996 at the age of 13. In early 2009, María Antonia wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper El Mundo denouncing that Correa would soon abandon her to her fate and that he was never worried about his son's ever-fragile health.

In 1997 he married Carmen Rodríguez Quijano in Marbella, where he traveled frequently, with whom he had a romantic relationship for some time. Years later he had a daughter with this second wife. The beginning of his business relations with the Partido Popular (Spain) is dated at this time .

Business activity

Correa ran several companies closely related to the PP, including Special Events , which organized important events for the party for several years. Correa's influence in the PP reached its peak during the administration of José María Aznar . He was a friend of Aznar's son-in-law Alejandro Agag , at whose wedding on September 5, 2002 at the Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial , Correa was also a guest. He joined the group of people who participated in the bookkeeping of the granting of benefits . During this time, the change from an occasional taking advantage of a systematization of relations with the municipalities and autonomous communities of Spain with PP mayors and PP presidents is dated. According to the tax authorities' investigations, in just a few years they managed to create a complex network of payments, bribes and tax evasion while avoiding any kind of tax control.

Carmen Rodríguez Quijano, office manager of Guillermo Ortega , Mayor of Majadahonda , awarded commissions from the municipality to special events . In addition to special events , Correa was the managing director of three other companies, including Servimadrid , who granted loans to Esperanza Aguirre, President of the Comunidad de Madrid . The PP-led Valencian Community also awarded public contracts to Correa's companies.

The subsidiary of Special Events in Valencia, Orange Market , was Álvaro Pérez, known as "Álvaro el del bigote" as (the mustache), a close friend of the President of the Valencian PP, Francisco Camps , PP President of the Valencian Community passed . Orange Market organized events for the PP as well as for the regional government in Valencia. After the defeat of the PP in the 2004 parliamentary elections, its business structure was changed and intensified in some places, particularly in the case of business in the Valencian Community with the government of Francisco Camps, who was president until 2011.

Francisco Correa stood out during these years, as El Mundo reported, for his lavish lifestyle, which illustrated the economic boom of his companies. A behavior that the ordinary taxpayer is wary of was criticized in his case by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Bajón , a journalist who designed a modern image for the PP. In late 2008, at the time of greatest splendor, the company owned several properties in Spain and continued the same business model.

The case belt

On February 6, 2009, Judge Baltasar Garzón opened an investigation into alleged corruption of the Partido Popular (Spain) in Madrid and the Valencian Community and on the Costa del Sol . Francisco Correa was arrested the same day in one of his homes in Sotogrande . The investigative proceedings extended to: the mayor of Boadilla del Monte , Arturo González Panero , the sports minister of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Alberto López Viejo and the former mayor of Majadahonda, Guillermo Ortega Alonso .

Baltasar Garzón was examining magistrate of the Audiencia Nacional de España , which is responsible for treason and universal jurisdiction (external application of Spanish laws). By means of telephone surveillance he got into the depths of party financing . When Correa claimed on the phone that he had paid six million euros to the treasurer of the PP and Senator for Cantabria Luis Bárcenas , Garzon clarified his jurisdiction by offering the anti-corruption prosecutor the case to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid or to the daa Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Valencia to submit, the offer was not accepted. He also investigated against the PP MP Gerardo Galeote .

Garzón found that Galeote and Bárcenas received from Correa 1,353,000 euros and 652,000 euros, respectively. So President Francisco Camps lost the dubious position of the best endowed, since in his case the useful expenses amounted to 12,000 euros for the award of contracts from Orange Market . According to the tailor who supplied the camps with clothes, the community president never paid the shop a single euro. He stated that the camp suits were paid for by Pablo Crespo, a member of the PP and executive director of Special Events .

On February 12, 2009 Correa was transferred to the Centro Penitenciario Madrid V and showed a progressively depressed state. To a fellow prisoner he commented on how he was feeling:

“¿Qué hago yo aquí entre delincuentes? Yo no soy un delincuente ""

"What am I doing here among criminals? I am not a criminal ""

Since 2009 he has applied for his release to the court through his lawyers on several occasions, petitions that were categorically rejected because he believed that the risk of escaping from Correa was still high. At the beginning of 2012, the responsible Audiencia Nacional de España set the deposit at EUR 1,000,000. Correa stated that this was beyond his financial means. On the other hand, the public prosecutor's office continued to classify the risk of escape as very high and thus defended the continuation of pre-trial detention.

Current situation

He finally left the Centro Penitenciario Madrid V on June 11, 2012 thanks to a deposit of 200,000 euros paid by his mother. It continues to be investigated in proceedings for bribery , granting of advantages, money laundering , tax fraud , the formation of criminal organizations and forgery of documents . The judge has withdrawn his passport, he is not allowed to leave Spain is subject to a daily reporting requirement.

After his release, he returned to his home in Sotogrande with his family. His neighbors were distant or angry with his return and the clubs in the area are unwilling to accept him again after the scandal. He is still denied access to the majority of the property confiscated by the Spanish state. In September 2012, US authorities provided the Spanish judiciary with data on Correa's accounts in the US and Gibraltar. Previously, his cousin and most important figurehead, Antoine Sánchez, was ready to reach an agreement and to work with the judiciary against Francisco Correa in view of the difficult economic situation, which he himself declared in court. He was ready to assist in the discovery, stated that he was unaware of actual business practices and that he acted in the belief that it was legal. Correa assured that he acted in the belief that the PP General Secretary approved all campaign expenses.

In 2017, Francisco Correa's companies appeared in the Paradise Papers .

On May 8, 2018, the Tribunal Supremo (España) upheld the 2017 judgment of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunidad Valenciana , with which the violations of the law against the Valencian Feria Internacional de Turismo case were sentenced to 13 years imprisonment, with which the Agreements between the Generalitat Valenciana and the Correa-managed companies from 2005 to 2009.

On November 20, 2019, the Audiencia Nacional de España sentenced Francisco Correa and Pablo Crespo to three years and seven years in prison, respectively, for criminal offenses that continued in 2004 from the form of granting advantages against an official of the City of Jerez de la Frontera to the detriment of the Feria Internacional de Turismo .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Tres de los cinco arrestados por corrupción están vinculados con el Partido Popular - 20minutos.es . Accessed in 2009.
  2. ↑ a b De Soto del Real a Sotogrande . June 15, 2012. 
  3. ^ "Correa me dijo que me refiriera a él como Don Vito"
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Cómo el botones Correa llegó a ser Don . In: El País . October 18, 2009. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  5. ↑ Francisco Correa no Quiso ocuparse un solo segundo de su hijo enfermo
  6. ↑ a b c La vida antes de belt . In: El País . February 8, 2009. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f El amigo de todos . In: El País . February 8, 2009. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  8. ↑ Alejandro Agag figura en la contabilidad 'B' de la trama 'Belt'
  9. ↑ La Agencia Tributaria destapa la formula fraudulenta del entramado belt
  10. ↑ Paco Correa, el hombre que quería vivir como los pijos . February 8, 2010. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  11. ^ Arturo y sus 45 caballeros - 20minutos.es . Accessed in 2009.
  12. ↑ Correa dice que en una grabación López Viejo pagaba actos del PP con dinero público - 20minutos.es . Accessed in 2009.
  13. ↑ "Son cosas que hicimos hace tiempo con 'el curita'. Es muy complicado"
  14. ↑ Garzón implica a un eurodiputado y un senador del PP en la trama 'Correa' - 20minutos.es . Accessed in 2009.
  15. ↑ Camps podría estar involucrado en la trama de corrupción de Correa, según la Fiscalía - 20minutos.es . Accessed in 2009.
  16. ↑ El sastre de Camps asegura que este 'jamás pagó un euro en la tienda' | España | elmundo.es . Accessed in 2009.
  17. ↑ Correa seguirá en prisión al ser sus delitos "continuados"
  18. ^ A b El infierno de Francisco Correa se llama Soto del Real . In: El Mundo . Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  19. ↑ Francisco Correa, en prisión: "¿Qué hago yo aquí entre delincuentes?"
  20. ^ El juez del 'caso belt' prorroga dos años la prisión provisional de Francisco Correa . In: El Mundo . February 4, 2009. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  21. ↑ El tribunal quita la fianza a Correa pero lo mantiene en prisión incondicional . In: El País . September 27, 2011. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  22. ↑ Correa podrá salir de la cárcel con una fianza de un millón de euros . In: El País . January 27, 2012.
  23. ↑ Anticorrupción defiende que Correa permanezca en prisión por riesgo de fuga . In: El País . January 20, 2012. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  24. ^ Correa, de Soto del Real a Sotogrande . In: El País . Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  25. ↑ Nadie quiere a Correa en Sotogrande . In: El País . Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  26. ↑ EE UU facilita a la Audiencia Nacional cuentas de la trama Gürtel en Gibraltar . In: El País . Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  27. ↑ a b Un testaferro de Correa, dispuesto a tirar de la manta porque no tiene dinero . In: El País . Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  28. ↑ Correa cree que Rajoy "daba el OK" a todos los gastos de campaña del PP . Retrieved February 7, 2018. 
  29. ↑ Correa creó su principal offshore un mes antes de llevar la primera campaña del PP. Noticias de Paradise Papers (es) . Retrieved on 9 de febrero de 2018. 
  30. ↑ El Supremo confirma 13 años de cárcel para Correa en la primera sentencia firme del caso belt . 8 de mayo de 2018. 
  31. ^ Belt: Francisco Correa y Pablo Crespo, condenados a tres años de cárcel ( es ) La Vanguardia. November 20, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Correa Sánchez, Francisco
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Don Vito
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Casablanca Morocco