Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- Former employees of Seguridad Integral Canaria have affirmed before the Court of Las Palmas that they were forced to work overtime and that charging them as if they were allowances was the norm in that company, whose owner, Miguel Ángel Ramírez, is accused of defrauding more than 36.6 million euros from the Treasury and Social Security between 2009 and 2017.
Supposedly, systemically camouflaging the payment of overtime as allowances, which are not quoted, constitutes one of the main mechanisms of fraud against the public treasury that the Las Palmas Economic Crimes Prosecutor attributes to the also president of UD Las Palmas, as well as to the person who replaced him in 2011 as the sole administrator of the private security company, Héctor de Armas, who from this Tuesday sits in the dock of the accused.
The first witness who testified worked for the company for almost 14 years and, as he stated, the treatment he received was “disastrous” due to the money he never received and the days off he could not enjoy. He has recalled that his base salary was between 800 and 900 euros a month, although he received another 100 euros more for allowances, although he never received money for travel or maintenance.
As he already denounced 10 years ago before the court that investigated the case, this former SIC employee has stated that he worked an average of 12 hours a day, although his day was 40 hours a week according to his contract, and he added that he He felt like a “slave 24 hours a day” in the company, which each day assigned him a different work center, first in the capital of Gran Canaria and, when he began to complain, outside the city.
They paid for their travel out of pocket.
“I did not charge maintenance or travel allowances, we paid everything out of pocket,” said the witness, who assured that they were “obliged” to work overtime and that the company run by Ramírez functioned as in the “time of the Nazis”.
He also explained that SIC paid them on the 20th of each month “but there was always a lack of money” and did not comply with the collective agreement, as well as that it never received the seniority bonus or any other type of bonus.
Another employee pointed out to the court that “if you had to work a day off or do two more hours, they wrote it down as allowances” and that he used to do some 120 overtime hours a month, after completing the 164 stipulated hours agreed in contract.
In his case, he was unaware of the conditions of the sector agreement, since he only looked at the payroll because he needed the money to support his family.
Most of the witnesses have indicated to the court that a long time has passed since they worked at SIC, which is why they have not been able to remember many aspects about which they have been asked, but all of them have confirmed their complaints.
Another of those who has deposed this Tuesday has recalled that he had a conflict with the company for claiming amounts that were paid to him as allowances instead of overtime, although he has commented that he is already retired and sick and that what he wants is “to be don’t worry”.
Likewise, another of the workers who denounced these events has died, so this Wednesday’s session will begin with the reading of his statement at the request of the Tax Agency lawyer, who exercises one of the four accusations.
Request for annulment of the cause
At the beginning of the trial, the defenses have claimed the annulment of the case, among other reasons for being contaminated by the decisions adopted as instructor Salvador Alba, today in prison for using this case to try to end the career of the judge who started it , Victoria Rosell, submitting false reports to the Supreme Court.
The court, chaired by magistrate Miguel Ángel Parramón, has decided that all these allegations, which are opposed by the Prosecutor’s Office and the rest of the accusations, because they have already been examined and denied in the investigation, be resolved in a sentence, for which reason the hearing has begun with the first witnesses.
For Ramírez, who was called the “king of low cost security” in Spain because he was unbeatable in the prices with which he won public concessions throughout Spain, the Economic Crimes prosecutor, Evangelina Ríos, demands a 21-year sentence in prison and a fine of 105 million, and for Héctor de Armas, 14 years in prison and a fine of 79.32 million.
Some sentences that rise to 37 years in prison and a 227 million euro fine for Ramírez and 29 years in prison and a 208.5 million euro fine for Héctor de Armas, according to the private prosecution exercised by USO, the union that put launched this case in 2012 by denouncing Seguridad Integral Canaria before the National Court.
The accusation exercised by the Tax Agency requests 19 years in prison for both defendants and a fine equivalent to triple the quota that is proven to have been defrauded, while the one representing the General Treasury of the Social Security demands 54 years in prison for each one of the two defendants and fines that multiply by two and up to six times the amount that stopped contributing. EFE