According to a complaint, there could be a possible fraud in the awarding of licenses to manage the commercial delegations.
Spain.- The National Court has initiated an investigation into a possible fraud in public tenders of the State Society of Lotteries and State Betting (SELAE), an agency dependent on the Ministry of Finance, led by the First Vice President, María Jesús Montero. As reported by The Objective, Judge Santiago Pedraz is in charge of the case at the Central Court of Instruction number 5, under file 219/2024, considering that the reported irregularities affect several provinces.
The investigation originated from a complaint filed by the lawyer Antonio García-Berbel, pointing out a possible fraud in the awarding of licenses to manage the commercial delegations of State Lotteries across the country. These 52 delegations are distributed across the 50 provinces and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
This concession model has raised suspicions, as the delegate positions are often occupied by members of the same families, raising doubts about the transparency of the processes, as the positions tend to perpetuate within family circles.
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The direction of Selae is headed by Jesús Huerta, who has been the president since 2018. Huerta was appointed by Montero when she was the Minister of Health in the Andalusian Regional Government. In 2020, his gross annual salary was €223,146.65.
