Former Marbella councillor ordered to pay town hall 550,000 euros for 'Saqueo II' corruption case
Municipal sources have told SUR that they will use "all the resources at their disposal" to recover the money from Carlos Fernández Gámez
Carlos Fernández Gámez, the former sports councillor of the Gil era in Marbella will have to pay the town hall almost 550,000 euros for his part in the 'Saqueo II' corruption case, according to the agreement reached on Wednesday 5 November with the Prosecutor's Office and the Audiencia Nacional (Spain's national court). This sum reflects the civil liability established in the agreement with the prosecutor, which amounts to 258,678.31 euros and responds to the calculations made by the town hall.
Marbella town hall is clear about the next steps it will take to claim the money back. The Law of Civil Procedure establishes a voluntary period of 20 days from the final sentence and if Carlos Fernández does not comply with it, the town hall has said it will do everything in its power to get the money back.
"Once the judgement has been notified and the voluntary deadline has passed, in the event that payment has not been made, the town hall will begin the enforcement process, with the same determination that it has been working for years to recover all the money looted from the municipal coffers," sources from the town hall told SUR.
It will use "all the resources at its disposal" and will collaborate with the tax office "if necessary", to investigate the assets of the former sports councillor. The town hall has said it is prepared to "appoint a specialised entity that has given very good results" in the proceedings of the Court of Auditors, which have served to recover a total of 15 million euros since 2024.
Proven facts
The ruling in the 'Saqueo II' case dates back to October 2013, but Fernández could not be sentenced at the time as he fled after the second phase of 'Operation Malaya' began. The 2013 ruling of the Audiencia Nacional - in which, among others, former mayor Julián Muñoz and former town planning advisor Juan Antonio Roca were sentenced to six years in prison (although the Supreme Court reduced the sentence for the latter to three) - establishes that Fernández received three payments from the town hall for "non-existent services".
The 2013 judgment declared as proven facts that Fernández received between 1995 and 1997 a cash payment and two cheques for a combined value of more than 20 million pesetas.
The first, for 1,650,000 pesetas at the time (9,916.70 euros), was paid in cash in February 1995 for alleged sports school expenses, while the other two were received by cheque between April and June 1997, one for five million pesetas (30,050.61 euros) and the last for 13,377,000 pesetas (80,397.39 euros) as a subsidy to the Unión Deportiva San Pedro. In total, the sentence established as proven a "damage to the municipal coffers" of 20,627,000 pesetas (123,970.77 euros) for the payments received by the former councillor.
Carlos Fernández was also manager of the public company Actividades Deportivas SL between 10 January 1996 and 18 March 1998. As soon as he arrived in February 1996, the entity began to accumulate a debt with the Social Security, first for both the employer's and the workers' social security contributions and from June 1997 only for the former. In total, the company's debt with the Social Security amounted to 81,482,030 pesetas (489,716.86 euros), according to the 2013 ruling. Between January 1996 and April 2001 the company had between two and 103 employees.
