Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- The owners of the Burmen company, the designers Lenita Burman and Luis Mentado, have assured this Wednesday before the Court of Las Palmas that the non-payments to Social Security that have accumulated since 2011 and for which They face six years in prison due to insolvency problems of the company, which “never made a profit.”
“I don’t commit crimes,” Luis Mentado said on the first day of the trial against them and his daughter Nicole, the creators of the swimsuit and underwear marches Lenita, XTG and Maldito Sweet, for alleged fraud to Social Security of 580,994 euros and for a possible crime of seizure of assets, which the owners of Burmen have also denied.
In addition to requesting six years in prison, the Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office demands a fine of 2.32 million euros for each of the defendants.
In this case, the Social Security Treasury appears as a private accusation, which also directs its charges against a fourth person: the person who was responsible for the company’s accounting, Airam del Pino Martel, who is charged with crimes against Social Security and insolvency punishable, facts that the Prosecutor’s Office does not appreciate.
After listening to the witnesses and the result of the expert evidence, Luis Mentado has stated that in 1993 he created the Burmen company dedicated to the manufacture, production and sale of swimwear and sporting goods together with his wife, but that the decisions were made by him. he “exclusively” and that he did not share them with his wife, who has corroborated it.
Mentado has said that he was aware of the debts that the company began to have for not paying the contributions of its employees in 2011 and that he delegated to the competent departments of his company to solve the problem. He has detailed that the first non-payment that he generated was for an amount of 6,000 euros and that the amount unpaid in 2013 amounted to a total of 344,693 euros.
Given the situation in which the company found itself, it was carried away by its advisers and they hired a law firm and the pre-bankruptcy was prepared and, in 2014, when Burmen was already dedicated only to retail sales, it also generated a debt of 63,000 euros that he could not pay either.
Likewise, he has explained to the court that the companies Beach Concept and Nillbeach Concept, which according to the accusations were created in the name of Nicole Mentado to avoid payments to Social Security and to those that transferred the activity of Burmen and reduce the contribution quotas of Its employees were established in 2013 because their daughter had finished her studies and wanted to start her own business, despite their opposition.
His daughter had the support of her paternal grandfather for her business adventure, with which the company Beach Concept was dedicated to production and wholesale, while Nillbeach to retail in a store that opened in the Center Yumbo store, in Playa del Inglés (Gran Canaria).
The social capital with which his daughter started these companies was 3,000 euros, the amount with which he himself started Burmen, Luis Mentado has pointed out.
The Burmen company, after the creation of Beach Concept, began to buy the production of its garments since due to the debts it carried it could no longer import the production from China, explained Luis Mentado, who did not answer all the questions asked. by the prosecutor and who has described as “nonsense” that his company had a turnover of 10 million euros, as the accounting and financial director has assured since 2004 and 2013, since he would not have had problems for payments.
This defense witness has told the court that between 2012 and 2013 Burmen’s financial problems began due to the continuous price increase of the Chinese importer with whom he worked, together with the drop in sales.
In addition, other companies owed money to Burmen, and all this caused its collapse, added to the fact that both Lenita Burman and Luis Mentado were primarily designers.
When the first losses were made, an attempt was made to renegotiate the debt with the banks and settle in the Canary Islands Special Zone, a syndicated loan was obtained and a deferment of the debt to Social Security was requested, the witness pointed out.
“There was no intention not to pay, on the contrary,” the witness stressed.
Both this witness and the defendant Luis Mentado have admitted that Burmen provided money to the Canary Islands Investment Reserve in 2009 and 2010, although they were not large amounts, about 250,000 euros.
As witnesses, several Burmen workers, who were later hired by Nicole Mentado, have also testified, who have said that they were unaware of these non-payments, because they only looked at the payroll that they did collect, and that when they became part of the company They did not give explanations or did not remember the daughter’s, although the companies sold the same and new brands and belonged to the family, and were “run by the same people”.
The workers have indicated that when the daughter created the new company that had the workshop in the same warehouse as Burmen in the Las Torres industrial estate in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, they moved to another plant, but within the same warehouse, although the machines they used were the same, as were the employees, because it was difficult to find seamstresses with that qualification, according to the director of the workshop.
Burmen’s labor advisor, who was also owed money for his services by his owners and his daughter Nicole, warned of the debts they were generating with Social Security.
The trial will continue this Thursday with the statement of Nicole Mentado and Airam del Pino Martel. EFE