The Police go to the CNIO headquarters to request documentation on the request of Anti-Corruption | Science | EUROtoday

Agents of the National Police appeared this Monday on the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), to request documentation on the request of the Madrid Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating an alleged million-dollar plot of rigged contracts, reported by a former director of the establishment.

The Ministry of Science, on which the middle relies upon, assures that “it was not a record,” because the newspaper has superior. The World“but exclusively from a formal request for information,” in response to a spokesperson. The brokers, from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF), have taken this documentation on a tough drive, however “in no case have they taken computers or any other device,” in response to the spokesperson for Minister Diana Morant’s cupboard. Police sources affirm that it was not a search, however reasonably a documentation requirement.

The CNIO is the biggest most cancers analysis group in Spain. A former supervisor, fired with a disciplinary file in August, has denounced that the middle’s former supervisor, Juan Arroyo, and different staff concocted an alleged community of rigged, inflated contracts awarded to pleasant corporations. According to the calculations of the fired former director, round 20 million euros may have been stolen from the CNIO’s public coffers in a decade.

Arroyo was managing director of the group for greater than 15 years. The criticism warns of “a set of patterns” within the hiring of companies and personnel on the CNIO. Starting in 2007, in response to the complainant, a bunch of “satellite companies” appeared with the alleged goal of “being awarded all contracts” for outsourced actions. The info despatched to Anticorruption provides the instance of Gedosol, based by the previous chief of workers of the CNIO and beneficiary of greater than 15 million in contracts, all the time in response to the criticism.

Another firm talked about is Zeus SL, created by the previous technical director of the middle and which supposedly had a turnover of 5.4 million euros. Alaos ITL SL, linked to the group’s former buying director, invoiced 11 million euros, in response to the complainant. The corporations within the community had the CNIO as their solely consumer and supposedly received virtually all of the tenders they entered into, in response to the textual content of the criticism, superior on November 16 by The World and confirmed by EL PAÍS. Arroyo denies the accusations.

The CNIO board – its highest governing physique, chaired by Eva Ortega Paíno, basic secretary of analysis on the Ministry – determined in January to dismiss Arroyo as supervisor and likewise the director of the middle, María Blasco, who have been at odds and weren’t even talking to one another. Bioinformatician Raúl Rabadán, till then at Columbia University (USA), changed Blasco, accused of alleged circumstances of office harassment and abuse of energy in opposition to some staff. The scientist, in flip, maintains that she has by no means harassed anybody and had already reported Arroyo’s alleged shenanigans.

This Monday, the Ministry of Science boasted of “its absolute collaboration with justice and maximum determination with any type of irregularities that may have occurred at the CNIO,” in response to its spokesperson. The heart has an annual funds of about 40 million euros, half of which is offered by the Ministry.

According to the 120-page criticism to the Prosecutor’s Office, the alleged scheme charged for companies that have been beforehand dealt with by the CNIO’s personal workers, suffocated by cuts and bureaucratic obstacles. The corporations, in response to the complainant, acquired funds of tens of hundreds of euros for duties that they didn’t carry out.

The complainant factors out alleged chained contracts for 49,900 euros or 14,900 euros, slightly below the thresholds that will require better management, as established by the Science Law and the middle’s inside contracting information, as detailed by this newspaper a month in the past.

The honorary president of the CNIO board is the Minister of Science herself, the socialist Diana Morant. This governing physique additionally contains different representatives of the central Executive and 4 autonomous communities: Castilla y León, Balearic Islands, Region of Murcia and Extremadura, all of them ruled by the Popular Party. Members of three personal foundations—BBVA, the Spanish Association in opposition to Cancer and Cris Contra el Cancer—full the board.