The Olive Press January 2009 | Page 8

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INVOLVED? Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yague in happier times

sociates, has been charged with money laundering in the case.

Garcia and Aifos Chairman Jesus Ruiz Casado, who have both been indicted for bribery, declined to comment. Benitez, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, was laid off by Aifos in October as the company battled to stave off bankruptcy after banks cut their lines of credit to the firm following the bribery scandal. Last week, a Málaga court accepted a demand from the company’ s creditors over an unpaid 8 million-euro bill.

As Roca amassed bribes, he began to acquire the trappings of wealth for himself and his wife, Maria Rosa Jimeno Jimenez, and their two children and various friends. Roca’ s wife was charged with money laundering.

According to prosecutor Torres, Roca said his fortune was worth about 120 million euros and included enormous estates in Cadiz, Ibiza, Madrid, Mallorca and Sevilla as well as various palaces in the capital that he intended to restore and sell as hotels. He also owned an art collection worth tens of millions of euros, including the Miro and works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

Probe begins

Roca’ s lavish lifestyle drew the attention of investigators including Torres and Oscar Perez, who took over the case from Torres in November 2007. They began probing Roca’ s business connections, particularly his possible links to money launderers.

In one deal, Roca allegedly took a 540,000 euro payment from the Mafia based in Calabria, Italy, while he allegedly did“ accounting work” for a drug trafficker identified as Davila.

While the investigators closed in, Roca faced additional threats. His Marbella office was broken into and he received an anonymous letter that included a photo collage of his family with all of their heads chopped off, according to testimony from Roca’ s bodyguard, Jaime Hachuel.

By 2005, rumours were circulating in Marbella that the Russian mafia was menacing the city planning administrator, Hachuel told investigators.

“ When the mafia saw the net closing in on Roca, their closest collaborator, the threats began,” says Romero, the former Junta lawmaker.“ If Roca were to sing, that would spell big trouble for them.”

Hachuel, 43, a former member of the Spanish royal guard, spent 32,000 euros on eight encrypted mobile phones to prevent Roca’ s calls to his colleagues from being tapped. The security guard was trying to procure equipment to detect bugging devices when police taped a January 26, 2006, meeting between Roca and Marbella businessman Ismael Perez Pena in Madrid’ s Villa Magna hotel.

At the meeting, Roca promised to boost the fees the town paid for the cars it leased from Pena’ s company. Roca also signed over to Pena two beachside apartments owned by the city as a repayment for money owed to his company by city hall.

In return, Roca wanted a favour – help repaying another debt to an unnamed party, according to a police transcript of the meeting.

“ You remember I told you I had to pay 3 million,” Roca said.“ What can you give me of that?”

“ In Box A, nothing; In Box B, as much as you want,” Pena told him, using Spanish slang for legal and illegal payments.“ I can give you 1.8 million in Box B tomorrow.”

Four days later, police stopped a black Audi A6 sedan leaving the Pena office in Getafe, near Madrid, and found 2 million euros in cash inside two cardboard files wrapped in packing tape.

The men inside the car were all Roca associates. Pena was charged with bribery and fraud. Neither Pena nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.

On March 29, 2006, police arrested Roca on charges of embezzlement, money laundering and bribery. That trial will begin sometime this year.

A verdict in his separate trial for embezzling 36 million euros from the city has recently been reached. Found guilty, Roca will serve six years and ten months behind bars.

Parts of this were first published in the February issue of Bloomberg Markets

Additional reporting by Mark Roulston

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The second coming

DAVID WYN explains how new technology has allowed the recreation of a village’ s lost heritage

ONE of Almería’ s lost treasures is to return home – sort of.

An ornamental patio that once formed the centerpiece of the castle at Vélez Blanco is to be recreated in its entirety thanks to a painstaking 3D scan that has been made of the original, which currently resides at New York’ s Metropolitan Museum.

Junta de Andalucía culture minister Rosa Torres said the restoration of the patio would rectify“ one of the most shameful incidents in Almería’ s history.”

The story of how several tonnes of Andalusian ornamental patio, complete with lintels, balustrades, cornices, gargoyles and decorative windows, managed to end up in a North American museum is an interesting one.

In 1904, the dukes of Medina Sidonia, who at that time were owners of the castle, decided to sell off what was left of the furniture and decoration. Although most of these items represented irreplaceable examples of Andalusian craft dating back several centuries, everything was sold to the highest bidder. The jewel in the castle’ s crown was an ornamental patio made from marble from the nearby village of Macael and decorated with intricate reliefs.

This was sold, among other things, to a French art dealer for 80,000 pesetas. The Frenchman made a very good investment; historians estimate that with the sale of a single door he made back his initial outlay.

The patio was broken down into 2,000 separate pieces and transported by mule from Vélez Blanco to the port of Cartagena – no mean feat when you take into consideration the patio measures 17x12x9 metres. From there it was moved on to the merchant’ s home in Marseille.

The patio was sold again in 1913 to an

American, George Blumenthal, who took it to his home in New York. When Mr Blumethal died in 1954 he bequeathed the patio to the New York Metropolitan Museum where it remains to this day.

The Vélez Blanco castle was purchased by the Junta in 2005 for three million euros and one of their first decisions was to restore the patio to its former glory. As the Metropolitan Museum showed no signs of wanting to sell the original, it was decided a recreation would have to be made. After all, the raw material, white marble from the quarries in Macael, is still in plentiful supply.

To allow a recreation to be made, a detailed 3D scan of the original was first necessary. Alejandro Arjona is director of the company that made the digital scan and he explained the difficulties of the project. He said:“ More conventional forms of digital scans were not available to us as white light scans involve spraying the surface with powder and laser scans involve placing stickers, neither of which the museum would allow us to do.”

Señor Arjona said they used a system which employed a digital tracker with three fixed cameras to give a 3D image and did not involve touching the surface at all. He said the work took five weeks, working 12 hours a day under the strict vigilance of security guards from the museum.

With the three dimensional image now in the bag, the Junta is currently trying to locate the requisite craftspeople needed to recreate the patio’ s intricate carvings and decorations.

Señora Torres said:“ The patio is the heart of the castle and its sale was shameful. This recreation will help return the castle to those it really belongs to – the people of Almería.”

Police uncover Dali haul

see page 18

ORIGINAL: Visitors marvel at the Velez( below) patio during a trip to the Metropolitan Museum in New York