The National Court has ratified the provisional detention of commission agent Víctor de Aldama for his alleged involvement in a hydrocarbon VAT fraud scheme of more than 180 million euros, appreciating the risk of flight and destruction of evidence in relation to the accounts that can have abroad.
In an order, the third section of the Criminal Court rejects his appeal against the imprisonment agreed by Judge Santiago Pedraz and discards the annulment invoked by his defense for having exceeded the detention period of 72 hours. For the room, The seriousness of the crime and the penalty that could be imposed justifies imprisonmentgiven that the accused could evade the action of Justice by fleeing.
De Aldama raised the nullity of this measure by alleging that it was agreed upon 72 hours after his arrest, in addition to considering that his entry into prison could be understood as a means of “pressure” to “achieve state objectives such as the confessed discovery of possible accounts or hidden goods”.
The investigating judge Santiago Pedraz agreed to his admission to prison without bail last month for crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, money laundering and against the Public Treasury in the framework of the so-called hydrocarbons case.
The court points out that in this phase of the investigation there is a lot of material seized in the records that is pending analysis that could give rise to new proceedings that could be harmed if Aldama were released.
Money transferred abroad
Remember that a significant part of what was defrauded (almost 74 million euros) could have been transferred to accounts abroad, so it is necessary to locate and block it, as well as determine the laundering operations allegedly carried out.
Measures that, according to the court, “would be frustrated or, at least, made difficult if the person under investigation were free, since today, with telematic means, he could continue to operate with the funds deposited abroad and hide the channels used to the transfer of funds to third countries”.
For all these reasons, the Chamber concludes that two of the purposes are met (risk of escape and possibility of destruction of evidence) that the law contemplates to legitimize provisional detention.
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