It has taken four days of hearings for the Mayor of Orihuela, Pepe Vegara, to finally speak in the trial where he is accused of a continuous tax fraud offence. The financial movements targeted by the Tax Agency occurred between late 2004 and the entirety of 2005 at the company Estación ITV Vega Baja, where Vegara served as a board member alongside two other defendants.
Specifically, the Inland Revenue is focusing on the purchase and sale of 100,000 promotional diaries from the company Orikoffee SL, which were offered as gifts to ITV customers to encourage visits. The Tax Agency found the purchase of these diaries suspicious due to the large price discrepancy between the initial amount and the final sale price.
This price increased through a circuit of intermediary companies, with the first setting the unit price at 1.31 euro, until it reached the 17 euro established by Orikoffee SL as the sale price to Estación ITV Vega Baja. This price was described by the Tax Agency’s expert investigator as “exorbitant”, “fictitious” and “oversized”.
Defence expert points to an administrative fault
On this matter, all the accused—Pepe Vegara, Maria del Carmen Cutillas, Manuel Ramón Pérez, Ricardo Pérez and Vicente Casanova—gave statements today. Their testimonies were preceded by that of an ITV Vega Baja expert who conducted a counter-assessment, indicating that, from his professional perspective, the Tax Agency report contains “serious defects”.
During his intervention, the defence expert detailed the reasons why he considered that the figures calculated by the Tax Agency regarding the Corporation Tax brackets were incorrect. In this regard, he admitted that a small deviation in favour of the taxpayers existed in every quarter, but argued that this—contrary to what the Inland Revenue indicates—would not reach the 120,000 euro line that separates an administrative fine from a criminal offence.
Furthermore, the expert wished to highlight the lack of equality in the treatment of ITV Vega Baja and Orikoffee SL during the study of this potential fraud. He indicated it would be unfair for this commercial company to have its invoices accepted as valid while ITV Vega Baja faces fraud accusations, stating that if it is permitted for one, it makes no sense to correct it for others.
The good diary and the “mediocre” one
The market price of the diaries was another recurring question during today’s session. Both the defendants and the expert were questioned on this, pointing out that at no point in the judicial order does the Tax Agency establish what the maximum sale price of promotional diaries should have been in 2005.
Likewise, it was mentioned that the 17 euro did not correspond exclusively to a single diary, but was a price fixed based on two notebooks: a technical glossary and a telephone directory. Or as the prosecutor renamed them: “the good one and the ‘mediocre’ one”. Regarding this payment, the former sole administrator of Orikoffee SL, Vicente Casanova, declared that this settlement was completed in 2007 after several discussions with the then-owner of ITV Vega Baja, Ramón Pérez.
In this sense, he explained that the payments were made over several years through bank transfers and in cash—without receipts—culminating in 2007 with two invoices which, according to Casanova, he was instructed to endorse to the company Autos Ramón. Conversely, the son of Ramón Pérez and current administrator of Autos Ramón, Manuel Ramón Pérez Zambrana, assured that his company never received that sum in any of the accounts he holds.
A “fake” invoice and board members without executive functions
Another notable moment of this fourth oral hearing occurred when the prosecutor asked Casanova about the price at which he had acquired the diaries from another commercial firm. The Tax Agency has referred to this amount on several occasions since the start of the trial, putting it at 1.97 euro. However, during Casanova’s statement, two purchase invoices from Orikoffee to that company were projected. The first, showing a unit amount of 1.97 euro per diary, was identified by Casanova as “fake”, before he immediately compared it to a second invoice that placed the price of this material at 12 euro for each notebook.
Ricardo Pérez also testified as a defendant in the trial alongside Maria del Carmen Cutillas, both of whom were joint board members of the company. In their interventions, both Pérez and Cutillas stressed that their roles on the Board of Directors were merely figurative and that Ramón Pérez managed everything. “We were not qualified at that time to run a company. We did not have an office or executive functions. Above everything and everyone was always my father,” Ricardo Pérez assured.
Trust in the manager
These versions were also shared and corroborated by the former vice-president of the Board of Directors, Pepe Vegara. The Mayor of Orihuela, who testified last, maintained that his role was representative, contradicting the statement made by the financial director of ITV Vega Baja at that time. “It is not true that we met to make company decisions. I do not know why the financial director lied in his statement, but we only represented our families,” Vegara stated.
Vegara, who assumed the position of de jure administrator in 2001, backed the versions of the other defendants, adding that he signed the contract for the diaries alongside Ricardo Pérez without reading its contents. “We did not negotiate anything with the companies, nor did we question the decisions of Ramón Pérez. We always signed based on the absolute trust we had and still have in the person who managed ITV Vega Baja,” he added.
Precisely in reference to the former executive director of the company, Pepe Vegara reiterated his trust in Pérez on several occasions, as well as his qualifications to carry out frequent commercial operations. “I do not know how this contract was managed, but what is clear to me is that Ramón always bought in favour of a balance between price and good quality. My father always considered him a trusted person and passed that on to us.”
In addition, as noted in the other testimonies, Vegara recalled that he did not usually frequent the ITV Vega Baja offices at that time, given that he had been working since 2003 at another group company located in Murcia. “In 2004 and 2005, I was not physically around Estación ITV Vega Baja. I worked 30 kilometres away from that headquarters, so it was not feasible for me to manage anything there.”
The next and final hearing will take place on Thursday, 16th July, when the defence lawyers, the state attorney and the prosecutor will deliver their closing arguments to present the case for their clients before the judge.
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