The public administrations governed by the PSOE of Valencia have awarded a total of 833,316 euros in recent years to the son-in-law of Pepe Cataluña, historical treasurer of the Valencian socialists and main protagonist of the so-called Azud case. Through at least four entities, Vicent Vergara Lloret, a businessman married to Laura Cataluña, has been awarded a hundred minor public contracts. Of the total amount invoiced, to which EL MUNDO has had access, 94% (781,034 euros) comes from the Generalitat chaired by Ximo Puig or from local entities and councils governed alone or in coalition with Compromís.
Practically all of the awards in which Vergara was a beneficiary (93 contracts out of 100) were awarded after his wedding with the treasurer’s daughter in 2018. A link to which President Puig was invited but did not attend, since it coincided with the news that several courts were investigating the alleged irregular financing of the Valencian PSOE and the old Bloc (today Més Compromís). He was filed because the crime was prescribed.
Catalonia is currently under investigation for illegally financing the party. Although he officially ceased to be responsible for the PSOE’s finances in 2004, he has continued to run them in the shadows ever since. This is what the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office maintains, since documentation that reveals the collection of commissions by businessmen in exchange for public tenders was intervened at his home. But also communications that reveal, in the opinion of the investigators, that he has continued to intercede in favor of businessmen before the Administration.
In parallel, the husband of his daughter took, to cite one of the most prominent sections, 120,847 euros from the Department of the Presidency of the Generalitat. Through his company Va de Tecnics Professional, S.L., he charged from 580 euros to rent a 50-inch television for an event to 12,341 euros for the same service but with an electronic screen for another event. He also received public funds for leasing the Puig Executive “sound and lighting equipment” or even “material for videoconferences from the President of the Generalitat.”
Through another of his companies, he charged municipalities governed by the Socialists for preparing “cultural heritage guides” and “active tourism” or “natural heritage.” Also for setting up “custom tents” or for “supplying vinyl, panels or signs” for environmental initiatives. He even came to collect from the Benicarló City Council for acting as an intermediary to hire a “community manager”, management for which he came to receive 1,815 public euros. Among the various services he came to charge for providing “bins” or 12,000 euros for “redesigning” a “visitor reception” space of the Center for Environmental Education of the Valencian Community (CEACV).
The PP has also denounced that, only in the Valencia City Council -governed by Compromís and socialists-, the son-in-law of Catalonia has received more than 307,000 euros through 31 contracts since 2018.
The PP of Valencia, chaired by Carlos Mazón, has already asked the Valencian PSOE if the contracts for the son-in-law of Catalonia are intended to “buy his silence”, despite the fact that the Socialists have also aired that the PP has contracted with this businessman for his acts elections (the most recent, in February 2022). But, as the PP emphasizes, “the boss” of the Azud plot, to which the historic treasurer alludes in some of his communications, is “Puig”, who is also referred to in his diaries on numerous occasions as “X. Puig».
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
