Training fraud case continues

OPERACION Barrado, a fraud case concerning training schemes for the unemployed in Andalucia continues to dig up new suspects.

Judge Mercedes Alaya, who is leading the case, doubts the criteria and control used to dispatch millions of Euros meant for training courses between 2005 and 2011 and places the Junta de Andalucia regional government’s Education Board at the centre of the hurricane.

One of the latest centres under the judge’s spotlight, the CIOMijas hostelry training centre in La Cala, may be ordered to pay back €8.9 million in grants which were received by the centre and not justified in accounts.

Three people in Malaga who were arrested this week, ex-Employment Delegate Juan Carlos Lomeña, the head of CIOMijas centre’s managing company Mariola Ustaran and the director of the centre between 2003 and 2014, Jose Gutierrez, have been released temporarily after refusing to declare.

Although no temporary measures were demanded for Lomeña, Anti-Corruption requested €6 million bail each for Ustaran and Gutierrez.