2023-05-13 08:24:21
The more than 1,500 pages in which the investigations carried out by the agents of the Central Operating Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on the alleged doping plot in cycling uncovered in Estremadura They include the transcripts of several conversations that were recorded after being authorized in an order dated November 8, 2021 by the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 4 of Cáceres. This resolution agreed “the interception, recording and observation of telephone communications” of the alleged members of the “criminal group”, completes a second order of October 13, 2022, to which this newsroom has had access.
As explained by sources of the case to The Newspaper of Spainfrom the Prensa Ibérica group, the content of these conversations shows the links that they kept “top level” cyclists with the alleged perpetrators of the doping network, whose leadership in the cause is attributed to the doctor Marcos Maynar.
These recordings suppose, always according to the consulted sources, a test of great importance, because they would show that the recipients of the doping substances were these designated athletes.
I stop the rejections
This is the reason why the defendants have tried, so far without success, to have the Provincial Court of Cáceres annul the recordings. And to achieve this objective, defense lawyers have focused their criticism on the actions of the UCO, one of the elite units of the Civil Guard that has carried out for months the so-called ‘Operation Ilex’. Specifically, they have accused the agents of to act in an “oversized” way and to carry out “a generalized prospecting” for six months against those investigated.
However, both the investigative judge and the magistrates of the Cáceres Court have stopped dead the reproaches made by the defendants’ lawyers to the work carried out by the UCO, whose agents have obtained numerous evidence considered relevant to keep the members charged. of an alleged “criminal group” that was dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of prohibited substances on the sport.
“Sufficient Clues”
The aforementioned order of October 13, 2022 issued by the Second Section of the Cáceres Court confirms, in this sense, that the investigating judge had “Sufficient evidence to agree on the wiretapping procedure“. They were not “mere suspicions”, the magistrates conclude. In addition, the recordings have always enjoyed judicial support, as evidenced by another order, this one of January 13, 2022, which agreed to the extension of the intervention of telephone communications of those investigated.
The summary also includes the allegedly criminal activities of the former cyclist and former sports director Vicente Belda Vicedo and his son, Vicente Belda García, the latter a physiotherapist from Astana. This World Tour team agreed to the dismissal of Belda García, but also that of the Colombian cyclist Miguel Ángel ‘Supermán’ López for his “probable connection” with the doctor Maynar. The Beldas, whose role in the alleged trema would be that of intermediaries between the doctor and the athletes, appeared this Thursday as investigated before the judge of Cáceres by videoconference from the Courts of Alcoi (Alicante).
According to the newspaper The countryand has been able to confirm this wording from sources in the case, the documents of the investigation carried out by the UCO also allude to the abandonment of López from the Giro d’Italia in 2022. However, this athlete has always denied having doped, and for this reason he has recently published a note on his social networks informing him that he has passed “the anti-doping biological passport controls” for which, he assures, “he has complete authorization to compete in any team after its renewed UCI license for the year 2023”.
“No es doping”
López, who now runs for the Colombian team ‘Team Medellín’, has denied his involvement in the plot. In statements to Efe prior to his judicial declaration, Maynar admitted that, among other athletes, he recommended to “Supermán” López the use of Actovegin, known as the ‘EPO of the poor’, and that it makes the “cardiac muscle suffer less during the effort”. “It is not a substance that is on the doping lists, therefore it is not doping“, said.
The doctor Marcos Maynar was already charged within the so-called ‘Operation Strobe’which investigated the alleged doping of members of the Urdaibai Rowing Club in 2010. However, in the trial he was exonerated of the crimes for which he sat on the bench: against public health and documentary falsehood. The sentence considered proven that the club had acquired packages of EPO and Aranesp, substances dopantes, and that he paid for them, but not that they were administered to the rowers. “The danger to life or health does not arise as a mere possibility, it must be a reality that must be verified and demonstrated,” said the ruling, which acquitted the doctor.
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