CITY LIFE but not as you know it
Princess
in her fairytale The little house that has been turned into a picture perfect home
OLIVE PRESS COSTA BLANCA
With a population of just 300, Frias is Spain’s smallest city See page 14
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Vol. 5 Issue 135 www.theolivepress.es July 11th - July 24th 2024
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THEY oversaw the biggest public money fraud in Spanish history, syphoning €680 million into a pot of cash known as the ‘reptile fund’. Dwarfing all other corruption scandals that have plagued the country, it saw politicians famously redirect public funds from Brussels and Madrid into secret bank accounts.
Embezzled
The enormous slush fund - which was meant to help struggling businesses, create new ones or to help pay redundancies - was instead spent on friends, families and paying off enemies. Yet the sentences handed down to former PSOE leaders Jose Antonio Griñan and Manuel Chaves, convicted of overseeing the huge theft, could soon be overturned.
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Whitewash claims as former leaders who oversaw Spain’s biggest corruption scandal could avoid prison
Javier Guerrero and his so-called ‘Cocaine chauffeur’ infamousIn an extraordinary judgement, ly spent much of the the Constitutional Court in Madrid money on prostitutes, has already significantly reduced cocktails and drugs, the sentences of 15 politicians who after knocking off were convicted in Andalucia’s infa- work at 2pm. mous ERE scandal. “We knew exactThe decision has led to the slam- ly what those funds ming of Pedro Sanchez’s govern- were used for, and it ment with claims he is ‘pardoning was certainly not for his PSOE friends and covering up the general interest his party’s past.’ or progress,” said PP The decade-long scandal involved minister Ana Mestre many senior figures of the party, in- this week. cluding Chaves, a former vice presi- “If they governed todent of the PSOE in Madrid. day, the PSOE would The most infamous abuse of pow- just do it all over PARDONED: Chaves and Griñan oversaw €680m corruption scandal er saw an ex-Employment Minis- again.” Rodríguez will now all walk free. ter and his driver set up two bogus But this hasn’t stopped Madrid’s of the convicted 15 politicians. companies, which were handed Constitutional court from signifi- Former ministers Antonio Fernan- And, incredibly, the six year sencantly reducing the sentences of 12 dez, Francisco Vallejo and Jesus tence handed to Griñan for his in€350,000 each in grants. volvement between 2000 and 2009 is to be overturned as well. A draft ruling, expected to be approved next week, will mean Griñan never sees the REPORTED cases of Covid have rocketed six-fold in inside of a prison cell. the Valencian Community compared to a year ago. Chaves is also likely to see The latest figures from the end of June show 221 cashis nine-year disqualification es per 100,000 people in the region - a similar figure from public office quashed. to last Christmas when mask-wearing was ordered in The rulings, which were all hospitals and clinics. confirmed by seven votes to A year ago, the infection rate was just 37 cases per four, were opposed by the 100,000. four conservative judges, Figures for people hospitalised with the coronavirus who accused the court of granting ‘immunity’ to forare now 2.6 people - average age 79 - per 100,000 mer PSOE officials. admitted compared to a rate of just 0.6 in early June. Antonio Sanz, a PP minister at the Junta de Andalucia, declared his party would ‘still do everything areacostablanca.com possible to recover all the 966 112 428 stolen money.’ SALES & RENTALS SPECIALISTS “No matter how much the PSOE tries to erase its past Moriara•Calpe•Jalon•Javea•Denia•Altea of corruption, it will not be able to cover up the biggest YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENCY FOR CALPE, case of corruption in the BENISSA, MORAIRA AND REGION history of Spanish democwww.moraira-hamiltons.net racy,” he added. By Walter Finch
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