An investigation in Spain is revealing how the Portuguese taxpayer has been ripped off for years by overpaying for aerial support services for firefighting teams.
Transcripts of witness statements in a long-running Spanish investigation into price-fixing and bribery in the lucrative firefighting market have made clear that Portuguese officials have been paid for years to leak price sensitive bid information.
A cartel controlling the hire of air support for ground firefighting teams is under investigation for price-fixing and bribery over the award of State contracts.
A network of collaborators in several European countries has been supplying highly confidential information to Spanish company Avialsa to enable a cartel to rig prices in a scam that has netted between €100 and €150 million in excess profits.
A witness statement from a former worker at Avialsa has revealed the names of Spanish politicians and regional governors involved in the international price-fixing plot and it is hoped that as the trial progresses that the names of Portuguese officials also are revealed and that they too will face prosecution.
The Spainsh web extended to Portugal, France and Italy where State employees have been paid to supply confidential information to the cartel on the public procurement of firefighting services.
“Avialsa had them on the payroll," read the statement resulting from the meticulous work of the National Police and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor of Valencia. There have been dozens of arrests in Spain and the implications for certain State employees in Portugal does not look promising.
Already, Portugal's MPs have demanded full disclosure of the amounts spent on emergency airborne firefighting services supplied at a seemingly extortionate prices.
Earlier in August, Portugal’s Air Force chiefs demanded to know why its skilled pilots are not being put to use on firefighting operations, rather than the taxpayer footing the bill for private contractors brought in at great expense at short notice. Now we know why.
Portugal's branch of Transparency International commented this month that the recently statement by the Secretary of State for Internal Affairs, Jorge Gomes, said that the fires allow the flourishing of "the firefighting industry which gives money to many people."
“The money is rushed through and each year, hundreds of millions of euros are spent in fighting fires without the public having clear and transparent information on the destination and the beneficiaries of these funds. Information about the fate of this money is scarce, almost secret, and the scant information that we have is worrying.”
The Spanish revelations will explain how and why the Portuguese taxpayer has been ripped off yet again by government employees in paying over the top for hired specialist aeroplanes.
In six hours of recordings to which Spanish newspaper El Mundo has access, the whistleblower explains how the cartel has operated for decades without raising suspicion as companies in the aviation sector got together to agree on prices, influence the decisions and share the rigged market while not competing with each other.
The same scheme has been running in Portugal for years where the Avialsa group won contracts and later "distributed the benefits with other business outsourcing services such as those leasing aircraft."
The cartel had access to a ‘coordinator of influence’ in Portugal whose salary was paid for by the Spanish. This coordinator was responsible for running a network of contacts within the ‘institutions of Portugal’ to ensure everything went smoothly. There are emails that refer to meetings in Portugal to reach pricing agreements.
Avialsa’s boss Vicente Huerta faces trial for international fraud on an epic scale and trial revelations should reveal the Portuguese ‘coordinator of influence’ as the net is drawn in.
See also: 'Suspicions grow over the millions spent on foresfighting air support'
