Marbella corruption: the Murcia connection

Marbella corruption: the Murcia connection
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By m.p. - Apr 2, 2006 - 10:50 PM

Juan Antonio Roca, the Town Planning Advisor in Marbella, on his way to prison in Alhaur�n de la Torre. Photo - EFE.

There are allegations that Los Alcázares Town Hall was involved in a land deal with a ghost company owned by Juan Antonio Roca

There have been reports in La Verdad newspaper that a company controlled by the man who Judge Miguel Ángel Torres describes as the real brains behind the corruption in Marbella Town Hall, was behind a land deal which involved the Town Hall of Los Alcázares, in Murcia. The police already believe that some of his front men have been laundering money in Los Alcázares which was obtained in Marbella.

Marbella’s Municipal Town Planning Advisor, Juan Antonio Roca Nicolás, who is from Cartagena, was imprisoned without bail after declaring to Judge Miguel Ángel Torres for some four hours on Friday. La Verdad reports that three of his companies have invested millions of euros in Los Alcázares in various building projects, and that Operation Malaya, as the Marbella corruption case has been christened, has also uncovered links between Roca’s companies and town planning projects involving the local Town Hall.

They say that the Supreme Court has ordered the courts in San Javier to continue investigations into one case which has its origins in May 2003, when an extraordinary Council meeting approved ceding two plots of municipal land to Compañía Inmobiliaria Masdevallia SL. The newspaper reports that it has now come to light, in Operation Malaya investigations, that the company is a ghost company owned by Roca.

The two plots, both in the Plan Parcial La Dorada and classified as residential, cost the company 742,000 euros. The deal apparently left the door open for ownership to be ceded to a third party. The larger plot of 1,300 square metres, reports La Verdad, was ceded to Dorma Golf SL, whose sole administrator turned out to be the sister-in-law of the municipal architect, and a distant cousin of the Mayor, Juan Escudero.

The land was remeasured when Dorma Golf sold the land on six months later, and turned out to be 215 metres larger than the area stated by the Town Hall when it was originally ceded.

The Partido Popular at the Town Hall presented a complaint, alleging that the local government were aware that the plot was larger than stated, and that they lost the municipal coffers more than 64,500 euros.

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