More than 10,000 fake students

There have been more arrests in the ongoing case in which police uncovered a money laundering web using training schemes as a cover to get substantial grants from the government.

There were no courses and no students. The police investigation into the alleged fraud concluded that the 10,671 students they interviewed had not been on the training courses they had been signed up for. Police interviewed a random selection of hundreds of students, signed up for three different courses with Ucotrans transport company in Madrid, without finding even one who had actually done the course or even signed up for a course.

Alfonso Tezanos and Victor Porta, both from Madrid, and Jose Luis Aneri, from Cordoba, are all in prison provisionally for alleged fraud. Aneri is the administrator of Sinergia which is the company principally responsible for acquiring the funds from Madrid. Tezanos was with the chamber of commerce in Madrid and was also a partner in companies offering allegedly false courses.

It is estimated that a total of €4.5 million (£3.6 million) was obtained illegally from state funds and another €4.4 million (£3.5 million) from regional funds all funnelled through approximately 30 companies based in Madrid. Another €6.5 million (£5.2 million) was accepted fraudulently from national funds. Sinergia and Aneri were intermediaries to at least a dozen other companies all defrauding regional, state or national coffers.

Police investigations into the matter are ongoing as every time they catch more people it just leads to more corruption and more people involved in the web of lies.