Javier Sánchez-Junco Manslawyer emeritus king Juan Carlos Ihas been hired by Cepsa to represent it in the investigation carried out by the Investigating Court No. 2 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for alleged crimes against the Canary Islands public Treasury and that focuses on the import and subsequent sale of diesel in the Port of Las Palmas as if it were fuel oil.
Sánchez-Junco, who was hired to defend the emeritus in the case of the commissions from Saudi Arabia, has extensive experience as a prosecutor in anti-corruption matters. During that stage he prosecuted the ex-banker mario count for the Banesto case. The prestigious jurist was, for 20 years, in destinations such as the Prosecutor’s Office of the Superior Courts of Justice of Asturias and Madrid, in the technical secretariat of the State Attorney General’s Office and in that of the Constitutional Court.
Mario Conde and Jesús Gil, two media cases
His last destination was the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, where he spent five years (1996-2001) and where he dealt with one of the most relevant matters of that stage in terms of corruption, such as the investigation of Conde for the diversion of funds to countries like Switzerland as president of Banesto. Another case that also gave Sánchez-Junco media projection was that of the embezzlement of more than 5,000 million pesetas of public funds from the Marbella City Council by the then mayor of the town of Malaga, Jesus Gil.
In 2001, after leaving his tax career on leave, he founded the law firm that bears his name and which deals with defending people accused of corporate crimes, against property and against the Treasury.
The ‘Cepsa case’
The Civil Guard considered that the alleged fraud committed by the company Petroleos de Canarias SA (Petrocan), branch of cepsa, is just “the tip of the iceberg” of a much larger fraud, according to a report requested by the Prosecutor’s Office in the pretrial proceedings. The dynamics of the fraud would consist in the fact that the company was importing a certain fuel, but in the single administrative document for the import it assigned a TARIC code (tariff code) of another.
Once the product arrived in the Canary Islands, it was marketed under the trade name diesel oil industrial/DO Industrial, considering it for tax purposes of application, collection, impact and liquidation of the tax as fuel oil, instead of diesel. The purpose was to pay less taxes, since the tax rate for fuel oil is €0.56/metric ton and for diesel, €222/1000 litres. The prosecution’s investigation determines that during the period between the years 2016 and 2021, Cepsa could have committed an alleged fraud of 7.8 million euros.
Two officials of the police are also being investigated. Canary Islands Tax Agency (ATC): the then head of the Import and Special Taxes Unit —current deputy director of Import and Special Taxes— and the deputy director of Inspection and Planning. Both are being investigated for the alleged commission of the crimes of omission of the duty to prosecute crimes and embezzlement of public funds.