What is the hydrocarbon case in which a former CEO of Feijóo is accused?

MadridWhen last Monday, May 26, broke out the Leire Díez case with the audio he published The Confidential, one of the interlocutors in the conversation revealed by the aforementioned media, had a trial in the National Court. The businessman, Alejandro Hamlyn, exiled in Dubai, is unable to leave the United Arab Emirates due to a €5,000 debt with the country, so the session was postponed until June 30. Norberto Uzal, considered the second in command in the so-called Drake case, did appear in court. The case will judge the €154 million VAT fraud on hydrocarbons by the company Hafesa, for which these two protagonists were the main perpetrators. But who is Uzal, and why are so many cases involving the hydrocarbon sector surrounding the latest episode of the dirty war in the State?

Former Falangist and close to Alfonso Rueda

Regarding Leire Díez, last week it was highlighted that there had been a lot of fuss about what was said in the published audio, but it was hidden that that Monday Norberto Uzal was due to go to trial. He was a man who made his first attempt at entering politics in 1994: he ran for the elections as a temporary candidate. He did succeed with the PP: between 2009 and 2013, he was Director General of Local Administration for the Galician Regional Government, in Alberto Núñez Feijóo's first government. Feijóo was the municipal secretary. Uzal's political career ended abruptly at the end of 2013 due to a case of workplace harassment for which he was later exonerated.

The framework of the hydrocarbons case

Uzal—like Hamlyn—faces 53 years in prison and millions in fines for his management of Hafesa between 2016 and 2019. This case is one of many opened in the National Court related to VAT fraud in hydrocarbons. How do these schemes operate? In reports submitted in some of these cases, the Civil Guard describes the method used as follows: the operator buys the product from the supplier, then uses a supplying company that will eventually sell it to the retailer (the gas station), which will pay VAT to the intermediary. The latter is dissolved before paying the tax to the Tax Agency. In this way, the instrumental company disappears, but the one actually committing the fraud, the operator, is protected. Furthermore, the money obtained from VAT that remains beyond the reach of the tax authorities is laundered.

Sources from the National Court's Prosecutor's Office lamented last week that some bodies have little "interest" in this trial taking place, and the proof is that it's been pending for some time. "It's a mess of a sentence," they point out. The sentences can be very high. This is why Hamlyn, in the meeting with Leire Díez, offered to smear members of the Civil Guard in exchange for judicial benefits, although once everything was leaked, both parties said they were going to lantern.