The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has received information from Portugal stating that Víctor de Aldama and a number of other businessmen allegedly diverted a total of 27.9 million euros from hydrocarbon companies between 2022 and 2024 with the aim of laundering that money through shell companies based in the Portuguese country. The Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for overseeing European Union funds, has thus intervened in the hydrocarbon case being followed in the National Court and has sent Judge Santiago Pedraz data from the investigations carried out by Portugal upon detecting suspicious transfers.
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In a decree, accessed by EL PAÍS, the Prosecutor’s Office explains that at the end of June the Spanish Delegation received relevant details revealing that four companies engaged in hydrocarbon operations in Spain ―Salamanca Fuel, Canary Island, Casmar Hidrocarburos, and Obaoil 3000― had been sending millions to the Portuguese banking system for months. This is how alarms were raised in that country and an investigation into money laundering began, as the suspicion was that the Spanish fuel sector companies were using fictitious Portuguese companies to make supposed payments for supplies without the corresponding VAT declaration in order to allow illicit profits generated to return to the businessmen. “The analysis of financial flows” leads to the conclusion that “a group of Spanish fuel trading companies” used “Portuguese shell companies to make supposed payments for fuels” and thus achieve “the return of the illegitimate profits generated to accounts in Spain,” they state.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office points out that Víctor de Aldama himself appears in the tax evasion scheme, as well as businessmen Nuno Miguel Santos, José Manuel Recio, and Juan Catalán. The labyrinth of Portuguese companies that were allegedly used for laundering includes, for example, a company dedicated to the purchase and sale of real estate (and managed by a Brazilian citizen with a student residence permit) that received payments from Obaoil worth 10 million euros but did not declare them. “It has not submitted invoices to the tax authorities, which indicates that these amounts do not correspond to declared activity or real operations,” the prosecutor states. Another company called Cálculo Corriente, whose declared activity was concrete manufacturing and transportation, received transfers worth 5.9 million euros from Salamanca Fuel and Obaoil between March and September 2023, while it only declared 3.1 million, “also without its concept corresponding to the fuel sector to which the company ordering the transfers was dedicated.”
The document links Aldama with the company Atmosferaudaz, founded in August 2022 with the purpose of offering consulting services and the purchase, sale, and management of real estate, although it does not appear as a buyer of goods in Portugal. This company received a total of 7.4 million euros from hydrocarbon companies. Reports from the Civil Guard included in the National Court also included this company as one of the vehicles through which the commission agent returned funds to Spain with the purchase of properties, for example, in Andalusia.
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Of the total 27.9 million euros that have been under the focus of the Portuguese authorities, it has been clarified that at least nine million were returned to Spanish bank accounts; another three million were sent to the United Kingdom (through cryptocurrency brokers) and three million more were distributed in accounts in different jurisdictions (Poland, France, Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Additionally, 13 million euros remained in Portugal, of which the Portuguese Prosecutor’s Office has managed to seize 11.8 million.
The authorities of that country concluded that the tax fraud was committed on Spanish soil and not theirs and, therefore, decided that the investigation should change hands. For this reason, they passed the ball to the Spanish Delegation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which began the verification phase of the information at the beginning of summer. It happens that many of the proper names and companies mentioned by Portugal already appeared in the case that Judge Pedraz has been following in the National Court since 2024.
The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard places businessmen Víctor de Aldama and Claudio Rivas at the top of a structure allegedly designed to defraud hydrocarbon taxes and suspects that they, allegedly through front men, managed the operations aimed at disguising frauds derived from fuel, although both have denied this in court. The investigations under the direction of the Central Investigative Court number 5 of the National Court probe an embezzlement of public funds that already reaches 231 million euros and focuses on several of the hydrocarbon companies mentioned by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, but also some others such as Carburantes Jalón-Plaza, Skyward Tech, and Espaeventos. The object, therefore, in the Spanish magistrate’s case is broader than what was being studied in the neighboring country, so the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has agreed to send all the information to him.
