President Of Barcelona’s CIBI Foundation Arrested For Almost €1 Million Fraud

PRESIDENT Of Barcelona’s CIBI Children’s Cancer Charity Foundation Arrested For Almost €1 Million Fraud

As the result of an investigation launched by Barcelona’s Court of Instruction No20, ​​the Mossos have arrested the current president of the CIBI Foundation, along with the secretary, and one of the members of the same organisation, for fraud of €1 million.

The CIBI Foundation is a well-known children’s cancer charity, which also supports children in situations of social exclusion, and the investigations which began back in 2017 discovered that the charity had raised more than €1 million, of which only €4,000 had been allocated to social work, a figure which represents only 0.47 per cent of the total charitable contributions received.

Investigations began in 2017 after several children’s cancer charity foundations informed the police of the allegedly anomalous operation of the CIBI Foundation, with the Investigation Unit of the San Martín police station operating in collaboration with the Protectorate of Foundations, and the Ministry of Culture and Sports.

This illicit activity began when a family clan of Venezuelan origin formed the CIBI Foundation in 2017 and initiated a socio-commercial relationship with other entities in the same sector, subsequently distributing some 12,300 piggy banks to collect donations in collaborating businesses throughout the Spanish State, with which they were supposed to carry out the campaigns of the foundation.

On June 14, 2021, several entries and searches were carried out in homes and premises, including the headquarters of the investigated foundation and the private homes of the main investigated and detained persons, except for one who is unaccounted for, and his whereabouts currently unknown, most likely in a country outside the European Union, according to h50.es.

The titular magistrate of Barcelona’s Court of Instruction No20, as well as the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office, has decreed precautionary measures on the assets of the foundation and the main investigated detainees, and blocked all the foundation’s current accounts, and suspended the activities of the CIBI Foundation through the Protectorate of Foundations, until all the evidence provided by the investigators can be assessed, while granting the three detainees bail, on the grounds that they can not leave Spain.

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