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FREE Vol. 3 Issue 68
MALLORCA
Your expat
voice in Spain
www.theolivepress.es November 22nd - December 5th 2019 JAILED: Grinan and Chaves finally face crimes
How a Cartagena naval officer’s ‘land of submarines’ made waves around the world see pages 10-11
STIR FRIED
Police called after expats charged double the price - and then assaulted - for failing to finish a meal at Wok restaurant EXCLUSIVE By Simon Wade
A BRITISH couple have called in police after being charged DOUBLE for a meal they thought was below standard. Expats Wayne Clarke, 34, and partner Natalie, were left stunned after staff at Wok Asia 5 restaurant also then physically and verbally abused them. The pair told the Olive Press they were ‘assaulted’ for merely refusing to pay for four people when only two of them had eaten at the buffet-style restaurant, in La Zenia. “The food was over-cooked and dry and appeared to have been heated up from the night before,” explained Clarke, a builder who is originally from the Midlands. “But when we asked for the bill they charged for four people, and
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when questioned said it was because we However, that wasn’t the end of the had left food on our plates! saga, as later that night, at 3am, the “Obviously we refused to pay double, but couple awoke with what they believe was they wouldn’t accept paying for two.” food poisoning. To make matters worse, when they start- It is also apparent that their experience ed to leave the staff got aggressive and isn’t unique, as online reviews give simistarted shouting at them. larly low opinions. “The owner’s son grabbed my wife by the On Tripadvisor, Wok Asia 5 is rated arm and shouted abuse at both of us,” he 42nd out of 45 restaurants in La Zenia, continued. with all but one of this year’s reviews be“I then called the police, who were luck- ing rated with one or two stars. ily on the scene quickly.” Comments include, ‘Worst garbage ever Police backed up the couple and told the presented with’, ‘Dreadful, no wonder restaurant staff to accept the offer of the it was empty’ and ‘Horrible food, very couple paying for ‘what they had eaten’. rude waitress’. 1 16/06/2017 “While they told us we could report Untitled-1.pdf the Understandably, Clarke15:36 has one word of assault, we just wanted to pay and go advice for Olive Press readers, “AVOID!” home,” added Clarke.
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IT is the biggest public money scandal in Spanish history, estimated at nearly €1 billion. Now, finally, two former Andalucia leaders are heading to prison and banned from office for their links to the disgraceful ERE scandal. Ex-Junta president Jose Antonio Grinan has been sentenced to six years jail and banned from office for 15 years, while predecessor Manuel Chaves has been banned from office for nine years. The pair oversaw the scheme, which saw the shocking theft of at least €680 million - dubbed the ‘Reptile fund’ - meant to go to companies in trouble and to stimulate employment.
Bent
A further 17 politicians and businessmen who worked with the Junta received a total of 86 years in prison between them, a Sevilla court has ruled. This included eight years for former Employment minister Javier Guerrero, who helped set up the scheme which embezzled money from 2000 to 2009. The bent politician was particularly guilty, having set up two bogus companies with his former driver - dubbed the ‘Cocaine Chauffeur’ - defrauding over €700,000 between them. The pair are said to have spent much of their afternoons spending the money taking cocaine with prostitutes at brothels near Sevilla. The final 1,700-page report, issued by a panel of judges, announced that 13 of those accused received six to eight years in prison while all have been banned from public office for at least 10 years. A further three, José Antonio Viera, Francisco Vallejo and Carmen Martínez-Aguayo were also ministers. In a major embarrassment for the PSOE party, Chaves and Grinan led the Junta for a combined 23 years, two thirds of the regional parliament’s history. The pair had been icons of the party, while Chaves went on to become a minister in both the Spanish governments of Felipe Gonzalez and Jose Luis Zapatero. The pair had overseen the set up of the €855 million slush fund, intended for retired and unemployed workers and struggling companies. Under Chaves’s presidency between 2001 and 2008 more than €576 million was diverted into the fund. It is now nine years since judge Mercedes Alaya first began investigating the more than 200 companies and dozens of politicians. A total of 507 people were investigated across an amazing 146 separate probes. The scandal is named after the so-called ‘expediente de regulacion de empleo’, or ERE, which means a collective dismissal procedure for companies which need to downsize. Hundreds of illegal ERE payments were made to allegedly struggling firms to make severance payments to laid-off workers, many who didn’t exist, the probe discovered. Millions were also handed out to companies and friends via grants which prosecutors described as ‘totally opaque’. The Olive Press first revealed about the ERE scandal in 2015 when a total of €1.3 billion was believed to have been embezzled by corrupt officials over a 12-year period. In a front page report in May, that year, we revealed how 16 politicians at the employment ministry were behind the scheme. President Chaves was warned about the fund as long ago as 2004 by a union complaining about bogus redundancy payments to miners in Huelva who did not exist. In a letter published in national newspaper El Mundo, the group complained that these people had ‘not been near the mine, neither inside or outside’. Opinion Page 6
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