Iona Napier
POLICE today seized 15 officials and are set to arrest up to 90 people across Andalucia in a new phase of the Operation Edu crackdown.
Almeria, Cadiz and Malaga have been targeted in the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit’s latest phase of its investigation into fraudulent activity in unemployment training courses.
The socialist ex-mayor of Jerez de la Frontera, Pilar Sanchez, has been detained along with 12 members of the PSOE, one from the PP and a priest.
Operation Edu – hailed as Spain’s ‘biggest ever fraud case’ – has seen Andalucian officials syphon over €1 billion of EU education funding using professional training courses.
The fraud scheme involved fake training courses paid for by regional government and the inscription of fictitious students for educational schemes.
Initial phases of the investigation saw 15 arrests in Malaga and Granada in July 2014 and further scrutiny connected to the scandal is set to continue under the title of ‘Edu Costa.’
If the police started investigating every government department and maybe banks the jails will be full!
David: The jails ARE full. But with the wrong people. Empty them of pathetic junkies and the mentally ill and there’d be bags of room for these real criminals.
Sadly, Spanish Jails are already full with that lot of politicos and bank officios… who probably all die of Old Age before the Spanish Courts & Appeals are done. Justice: Tried, Guilty, 15 Years, but now Dead. ugh
When and where come the corrupted Milliones to the People?!
Not many biggies have actually got prison sentences yet. The ones that have are quite short sentences. If they cleaned up all the corruption there wouldn’t be many Police left either!