Madrid-Barcelona high-speed AVE works 'inflated by €82m'; works managers and civil servants arrested
Thursday, June 30, 2016 @ 8:54 AM
INFLATED invoices to the tune of €82 million when building the high-speed AVE railway line from Madrid to Barcelona have been uncovered and 14 people arrested.
Rail board infrastructure management firm ADIF is said to have presented reports to the prosecution warning that estimates for works and the resulting invoices for three stretches of the AVE line had been deliberately priced way above the book value, the idea being that the surplus would be split between those involved in the fraud.
This means €82m of public funds, or taxpayers' money, would disappear into the culprits' pockets.
The chunk of the line affected, which includes the station at La Sagrera, is not yet finished.
ADIF offices on Madrid's C/ Titán, civil engineering firms in Madrid and Barcelona, and the ADIF headquarters at La Sagrera station have all been searched.
Those arrested, mostly linked to the construction firms and the rail board, are accused of embezzlement of public funds and forging paperwork.
Investigators are also attempting to prove that the former works managers at ADIF accepted cash bribes to silence them over the inflated invoices.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com