The former CNIO supervisor breaks his silence on corruption: “It has been depravity to squeeze every last cent” | Science | EUROtoday

For a minimum of 15 years, the most important most cancers analysis heart was a nest of corruption whose ringleaders may have stolen as much as €30 million of public cash by rigging contracts. It is the picture drawn by the final supervisor of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), José Manuel Bernabé, who left his place on Friday after an inconclusive criticism for alleged harassment. Bernabé has shared with EL PAÍS particulars of how this alleged plot labored, on which he has already offered 5 experiences to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Economic and Fiscal Crimes Unit of the National Police (UDEF). His story is supported by dozens of paperwork reviewed by this newspaper. In phrases of quantity and scope, it will be the most important case of corruption in a scientific heart in current historical past.

The alleged ringleader of the community was Juan Arroyo, who was supervisor of the CNIO from 2009 till his resignation in 2025. Bernabé speaks of embezzlement, falsified paperwork, affect peddling, even of employees employed with public funds who acted as servants within the ringleader’s home. This proof is added to that already reported by a senior CNIO official to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which started the investigation by the general public ministry in November.

“The first lie is that I came to the CNIO to clean things up,” Bernabé begins. Graduated in Philosophy and Law, this senior school technician – the elite of State officers – landed on the heart in September after an excellent profession in different organizations such because the National Markets and Competition Commission. His signing was celebrated by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, directed by Diana Morant, as the start of a brand new stage on the CNIO that would depart behind the interior struggles and alleged illegalities. “No one warns me about what the center really is like and, given what we have seen, we should have entered with a complete team of computer scientists, engineers, economists and lawyers, not with a single manager,” he laments.

The very first thing that Bernabé verified is that on the administrative stage the CNIO was an out of date heart, with out digitalization, atypical within the twenty first century. It was very troublesome to search out paperwork, information, invoices. It quickly grew to become clear to him that it was “a deliberate chaos” that sought to “hide the information.” In circumstances the place info was out there, it was typically unimaginable to show {that a} particular contract, for instance for a renovation or restore, was truly carried out or existed solely on paper.

Until a number of days in the past, Bernabé was investigating irregularities of this sort in upkeep contracts between the CNIO and Eiffage Energía Sistemas, a Spanish subsidiary of a big French multinational that’s the fifth largest building firm in Europe. Under certainly one of these contracts, for an quantity of 1.3 million euros, this firm offered 19 upkeep workers to the CNIO, explains Bernabé. One day, accompanied by a number of witnesses, he went all the way down to depend what number of employees have been truly working. And he discovered seven much less. When he checked the turnstiles for a complete month, it grew to become clear that there have been seven individuals who by no means confirmed up there. Then he referred to as Javier de Dios, head of Technical Management on the CNIO, and requested him what was taking place. After two minutes wanting on the proof projected on a display, “he started crying in my office,” Bernabé remembers. De Dios broke down and confessed that it was a trick in order that upkeep workers may earn extra, and that this was carried out by order of the alleged ringleader, Juan Arroyo, who was dismissed by the CNIO board in January 2025 together with the scientific director, María Blasco, after virtually 15 years of latent confrontation between them that broke out on the finish of 2024.

Bernabé reported this case to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The last item they know is that the Police suspect that a few of these workers paid by the CNIO who by no means appeared on the heart have been truly engaged on actual property properties belonging to Javier de Dios himself – who would have been as much as 20 – all the time beneath the tutelage of Juan Arroyo. Bernabé suspects that among the more money paid to Eiffage ended up enriching Arroyo and his collaborators.

One of these upkeep workers was referred to as “the butler.” Every week, this particular person went to Juan Arroyo’s home, situated in a luxurious improvement on the outskirts of Madrid, to make himself out there to his spouse and son and perform “little jobs, repairs or clean the garden,” says Bernabé. The worker additionally introduced a canister of diesel to Arroyo’s home weekly, paid for with CNIO funds. “Here shabbyness is mixed with contractual and financial depravity to squeeze every last cent out of the CNIO,” summarizes Bernabé.

Eiffage Energía assures that it has not but obtained any official request and that, in that case, its collaboration will probably be “absolute.” Arroyo has declined to answer this newspaper. De Dios has not responded to the e-mail despatched by EL PAÍS.

The former supervisor was additionally investigating contracts with a number of corporations based mostly in Madrid and close by cities corresponding to San Martín de la Vega, Parla and Móstoles, owned by residents from Ukraine, based on the paperwork reviewed by this newspaper, and who’ve been CNIO contractors for years. According to Bernabé, one of many workers of those corporations acknowledged to the UDEF that an alleged work of 185,000 euros subcontracted by Eiffage for the CNIO, detailed with an bill, was by no means carried out. The former supervisor believes that these allegedly false contracts have been the way in which wherein the plot made cash from the companies not offered. In whole, these contracts quantity to 9.5 million euros, he says.

Similarly, there could be as much as 10 million euros in contracts for companies that have been by no means carried out. Some of those “poorly managed” contracts have been highlighted by the General State Intervention in a 2020 report on the CNIO, with out the state of affairs being corrected by both the Ministry of Science, then led by astronaut Pedro Duque, or anybody in Pedro Sánchez’s Government.

The former supervisor has additionally reported to the Prosecutor’s Office suspicious actions within the administration of the properties that the CNIO has all through Spain, which have been donated by people of their wills to help most cancers analysis. They are homes in Galicia, Seville, Madrid, Calahorra, Orihuela… from whose public sale and sale the CNIO “mafia”, as Bernabé calls it, may even have tried to get a reduce, who says that he refused to promote a home in Galicia valued at round 300,000 euros, however that supervisor Arroyo’s entourage needed to promote for round 100,000, in a wierd maneuver. After detecting these manipulations, in December it determined to switch the administration of all of the legacy properties to Segipsa, the state industrial firm that relies upon instantly on State Heritage, based on inner emails reviewed by EL PAÍS. The maneuver had the approval of Eva Ortega Paíno, president of the CNIO board of trustees, its highest governing physique, and common secretary of Research on the Ministry of Science.

For six months, Barnabas continued opening drawers in an more and more hostile state of affairs. “I was very alone; I didn’t know where they were going to ambush me,” he remembers. He felt cornered by Arroyo and his acolytes, together with the deputy to administration, José Ignacio Fernández Vera, and the final secretary, Laura Muñoz. It is more and more clear that these high-ranking officers have been doing nothing greater than spying on their work and hindering it.

On November 25, Bernabé requested the middle’s board of administrators to dismiss these three individuals, which was unanimously authorised. A day later, Laura Muñoz filed an accusation of harassment in opposition to Bernabé earlier than human assets on the CNIO. He blamed him for sharing private photographs on the gymnasium and feedback about his ex-girlfriend or the variety of girls he had had relationships with within the final yr. An exterior investigation course of begins that ends and not using a verdict, for the reason that complainant by no means appeared, based on paperwork reviewed by this newspaper. Bernabé assures that it was only a fully regular and “fluid” friendship at work, since he shared a love of train with Muñoz. “I have not harassed anyone in my life,” he says, including that harassment complaints have been used on the CNIO “as a tool of terror” by Arroyo and his collaborators in opposition to him and in opposition to María Blasco, who “they also ambushed,” in his opinion.

Bernabé has additionally reported to the Prosecutor’s Office the “illegal” hiring of Muñoz as common secretary in 2025, with a wage of round 80,000 euros per yr, way more than what every other particular person in that class earns on the CNIO. According to emails reviewed by this newspaper, it was Muñoz herself who wrote the technical profile for her hiring. Since 2013, Muñoz had labored on the CNIO subcontracted by Gedosol, one of many corporations recognized within the alleged corrupt plot.

After the criticism, a senior official from the Ministry of Science requested Bernabé if he wrote these messages to Muñoz, to which he responded sure. Then the Ministry introduced that it will request his dismissal from the board the following day. Finally, the components was completely different: after a marathon assembly, his resignation was merely accepted, for the reason that fact is that he had introduced it a lot earlier, on February 1. By then, the fatigue of those months had taken its toll on his well being, and he additionally feared that they might set a lure for him, which they did, based on his model. “I was in a state of continuous stress. I had no team, and I couldn’t hire anyone. Where was I going to get the funds from, if the CNIO is depleted?” he laments. By tendering his resignation, the Ministry inspired Barnabas to proceed to complete his enlightening work. He agreed to proceed collaborating and make a tender exit, till the harassment criticism made his continuity unimaginable.

When requested by this newspaper, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities supported the division’s actions and assured its collaboration with justice.

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