The complainant speaks concerning the alleged corruption on the CNIO: “It is a mafia organization” | Science | EUROtoday

It is the worst nightmare for a number one analysis middle devoted to understanding and combating one of many worst recognized evils. Could the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO)—one of many nation’s scientific jewels—have harbored a corrupt community that awarded contracts to pleasant corporations with out following correct procedures? A former supervisor who labored on the middle since 2005 is satisfied that it’s. In the final decade, some 20 million euros have been deducted from the price range of this public physique, as maintained in a criticism that has been offered to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, and to which this newspaper has had entry.

“It is a very uncomfortable situation,” acknowledges the particular person in cost, who till August was director of operations on the CNIO. He requests anonymity as a result of whistleblower safety regulation, as he considers that his obligation was to denounce the fact that, he claims, he started to come across on the finish of 2024, when auditing the group’s accounts. He says he felt “fear, disappointment, insecurity”; to the restrict of spending months accumulating knowledge on onerous drives and utilizing a pc disconnected from the Internet in order that his former bosses couldn’t observe him.

“I wanted not enough evidence, but absolute evidence. It had to be a rigorous and extensive complaint. We have been working for six months, night and day, with the help of several colleagues who are still in the center. I thought: either it is very good, or it will escape me again,” explains the previous director. He refers to Juan Arroyo, former managing director of the CNIO and, in line with him, the primary particular person chargeable for the community of irregular contracts. For the complainant, Arroyo was a detailed good friend for greater than 15 years, with whom he shared each work and birthday celebrations at his house. Since he found the alleged rigging, they haven’t spoken once more. “I have realized that everything follows its own logic. He has seen a way to take advantage of everything that has come his way,” he laments. The aforementioned denies all of the accusations.

The criticism warns of “a set of patterns” within the hiring of providers and personnel on the CNIO. Since 2007, a bunch of “satellite companies” has emerged with the obvious purpose of “being awarded all contracts” for outsourced actions. An instance is Gedosol, based by the previous chief of employees of the CNIO, which took greater than 15 million in contracts, in line with the criticism. Zeus SL, created by the middle’s former technical director, would have invoiced 5.4 million euros. Alaos ITL SL, linked to the group’s former buying director, had a turnover of 11 million euros. And there may be additionally Navestalia, which manages an industrial warehouse in San Agustín de Guadalix, close to Madrid, allegedly linked to the previous managing director. The corporations within the community had the CNIO as their solely consumer and supposedly gained virtually all of the tenders they entered into, in line with the textual content of the lawsuit.

The solely one in every of these corporations that has responded to this newspaper’s questions is Alaos, which “flatly rejects any suggestion of improper conduct.” “The company is exhaustively reviewing all documentation related to historical contracts with the CNIO in order to provide, if necessary, with the greatest transparency, objective data on costs and benefits throughout the contractual relationship,” he provides in a be aware.

According to the story given to the Prosecutor’s Office, in some circumstances these corporations have been accountable for hiring personnel to supply providers that the CNIO beforehand supplied, comparable to secretariat for analysis teams. This allowed it to proceed hiring employees regardless of the restrictions that the middle has suffered in the course of the years of the disaster. On different events, corporations acquired tens of 1000’s of euros for work by no means completed, all the time in line with the criticism, which is 120 pages lengthy and was filed by The World.

The whistleblower’s evaluation factors to alleged chained contracts for 49,900 euros or 14,900 euros, slightly below the boundaries that assure higher management, as supplied by the Science Law and the middle’s inner contracting information, respectively. One of those contracts, near 50,000 euros, was to supply masks. When they arrived, they needed to be discarded as a result of they have been virtually unimaginable to placed on as a result of shortness of the rubber bands, says the complainant. According to their evaluation, there are indications of fractionation amounting to multiple million euros between 2018 and 2024.

“It is a mafia; a mafia organization,” summarizes the complainant, who offered the doc in Anticorruption on the finish of June. The report was accepted, however the Prosecutor’s Office has not but made any transfer. None of these concerned have but acquired any request or communication.

The complainant and one other former colleague who helped him analyze the accounts have been fired in August with a disciplinary file for having allegedly hindered important contracts on the CNIO that endangered the integrity of the group, in line with sources accustomed to the method. Both have denounced the middle for alleged unfair dismissal and are awaiting trials that shall be held in 2026. It remains to be an enigma whether or not the Prosecutor’s Office will give credibility to what was reported and can open proceedings or shut the case. A key level is to elucidate the existence of bites, one thing that the present criticism doesn’t do.

This disaster blurs the brand new stage that was anticipated for the CNIO, the flagship of most cancers analysis. In January, the group’s board of administrators dismissed its managing director, Juan Arroyo, and the scientific director, María Blasco, in opposition to whom accusations of office harassment and neglect of duties weighed, as EL PAÍS reported. Both had been of their positions for greater than a decade. The confrontation between the 2 segregated the middle into two generally irreconcilable sides. In latest years, the CNIO survived with out of date or broken amenities, whereas scientific leaders denounced the administration’s contempt. What was purported to be the perfect oncology analysis middle lived in “a climate incompatible with excellence,” as acknowledged by the Minister of Science, Diana Morant, after eradicating Blasco and Arroyo, who returned to their earlier positions as group chief and financial deputy director, respectively.

Although the main focus within the earlier disaster was Blasco, now the main focus is on Arroyo. “I have not done anything outside the law,” says this 70-year-old economist and monetary inspector in a phone dialog. “All actions have been endorsed by the IGAE [intervención del Estado] and the Court of Accounts. These same complaints were already the subject of a complaint [presentada por Vox]which has been dismissed. And I can’t say more until I receive the new complaint,” provides Arroyo.

The Government doesn’t need to await that to occur. He has referred to as for this Tuesday an emergency assembly of the board of trustees – the very best governing physique of the CNIO – whose honorary president is Morant, and by which 4 autonomous communities that rotate each two years are additionally represented – at the moment the Balearic Islands, Castilla y León, Extremadura and Murcia, ruled by the PP – and three non-public trustees. The authorized consultant of the middle at that assembly, and probably its protagonist, shall be José Manuel Bernabé Sánchez, new managing director since September. Bernabé has arrived with two clear aims: to revive the establishment and analyze previous accounts intimately to make clear duties.

It is probably going that at this assembly selections shall be made to “clean” the group, in line with sources from the Ministry of Science. Senior officers of this division have been alerted in March and August of the irregularities and the alleged deduction of tens of millions of {dollars} by the complainant. The two fired executives even requested for “protection” for “retaliation.”

The Ministry of Science assures that it knowledgeable the board of trustees of this criticism, one thing that some employers deny. From Morant’s condominium the complainant is seen with suspicion. They contemplate that he’s upset as a result of he was not chosen as the brand new supervisor. They additionally level out that the 2 dismissed held positions of accountability within the years by which the alleged irregularities have been being dedicated.

In flip, the complainant feels discriminated in opposition to and ignored by the Ministry for having labored as an advisor to Minister Luis de Guindos in the course of the Government of Mariano Rajoy (PP) between 2012 and 2018. “At least 33% of our population has their hopes pinned on the CNIO, who will suffer from cancer throughout their lives; and we are going to take it upon ourselves due to an internal battle. We have to fix it from the outside,” they clarify from the Ministry.