Opposition parties in Madrid’s regional government have stepped up pressure on Popular Party (PP) Prime Minister Isabel Diaz Ayuso to resign on Thursday, after it was revealed that her partner, Alberto Gonzalez Amador, had admitted to prosecutors that he had committed similar tax fraud offences. the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just yesterday, a visibly nervous Ayuso made statements to the press in which she assured that the matter is total “political persecution” through the ruling Socialist Party, in an attempt to divert attention from a similar investigation recently revealed, known as the “Koldo Affair”. “
“They want to destabilize me through my personal destruction,” Ayuso said Wednesday. “Pedro Sanchez is mired in political and economic corruption and this is going to hide it,” he added.
But on Thursday, media outlets such as Cadena SER revealed that Gonzalez’s lawyer had written to the prosecutor as part of the investigation into his business dealings, in which he admitted to tax fraud charges from 2020 and 2021.
This resolution was aimed at reducing the fine he would have to pay and avoiding a criminal sentence.
The Madrid prosecutor issued a brief on Thursday morning in which he showed that Ayuso’s wife had indeed proposed such a deal through the lawyer’s letter.
The latest revelations about the case gave the opposition plenty of arguments at the regional parliament consultation on Thursday.
“You have taken credit for luxury pieces that would have been purchased with cash fraudulently stolen from all Spaniards,” said Juan Lobato, the Socialist leader in the Madrid Assembly. “And lying,” he added.
This issue is a great embarrassment for Ayuso and the PP.
In recent weeks, the party has attacked the ruling Socialist Party over its alleged ties to the Koldo affair, which concerns commissions allegedly paid to former Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos’ right-hand man for facilitating government contracts for face masks.
The Spanish newspaper El Diario was the first to announce the Gonzalez case, suspected according to the prosecutor’s office of having evaded taxes worth 350,951 euros between 2020 and 2021, by creating a network of fake companies and false invoices.
He is accused of employing these strategies to decrease the real profits of his companies, during the worst years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and thus pay less tax.
According to El Diario, Gonzalez submitted 15 false invoices for fabricated expenses, totaling €1. 7 million. That amount was deducted from his taxes as expenses, thus saving the aforementioned sum of EUR 350,951.
The research of the two corporations, Maxwell Cremona Engineering and Processes for the Promotion of the Environment, and Masterman
The former is a fitness services company, while the latter, an employee company, is engaged in cosmetics and pharmacy.
The investigation was launched after he filed his tax returns in 2021 and 2022, which were in line with previous years. The Spanish government was able to verify from the figures that the turnover of its companies increased sixfold in 2020, to 2. 3 million euros. , they had only made €8,400 in profit due to suspicious costs.
There is no evidence of wrongdoing by her friend, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, 45, who has been Madrid’s regional president since 2019.
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