Former executives of the company Isolux Corsán defended the “absolute legality” of the real estate operation in Mexico through which, according to the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola earned 13 million euros in two years by contributing only one peso, in a “simulated” investment by the leader of the construction company.
The former vice president of Isolux José Gomis and Antonio Portela, who was CEO, testified this Thursday as witnesses in the trial being followed in the National Court against the former Catalan president Jordi Pujol and his seven children, in addition to a dozen businessmen, for the origin of the hidden fortune in Andorra, which the Prosecutor’s Office believes the family amassed with illegal commissions.
Among the businessmen who sit in the dock is the former president of Isolux Luis Delso, with whom both witnesses have said they have a relationship due to the many years they have shared businesses. In fact, Gomis was convicted along with him of tax fraud in a sentence that the Madrid Court overturned in 2017.
A hotel complex in Mexico
The witnesses have been questioned in relation to an investment operation in Mexico called Azul de Cortés, linked to the purchase of land on the country’s coast to build a hotel complex, with a private beach and golf courses, a project that according to the Prosecutor’s Office was fictitious and with which Pujol Ferrusola and his wife earned 13.4 million euros, contributing one Mexican peso.
The land was acquired by Delso and Gomis through a company they shared in June 2006 and, two months later, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s company IMISA entered into the investment with 21.5% of the shares, through the “symbolic” contribution of one Mexican peso, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
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In December 2008, coinciding with the global economic crisis, IMISA sold its stake in “Azul de Cortés” for 15.2 million euros to the company linked to Delso and Gomis, who in turn sold the project to the Isolux group that the first of them presided over, for 126 million dollars.
The Prosecutor’s Office: Isolux participated ‘actively’ in the project from its origin
The Prosecutor’s Office believes, however, that Isolux was already “actively” participating in the project from its origin through investment companies, so the purchase operation required it to pay a price 100 times higher than the appraisal value.
The former directors of Isolux have maintained that the operation was carried out “under the most absolute legality” and that at all times they had the advice of legal and economic teams: “We had the best lawyers, both in Spain and in Mexico.”
With information from EFE
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