The Civil Guard increases Barça's payments to Negreira to 7.6 million euros and investigates whether he used front men to get the money

Between 2001 and 2018, FC Barcelona paid 7,593,012 euros to the companies Dasnil and Nilsad, of which José María Enriquez Negreira was then vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees.. This is stated in the “numerous documentation” provided by the Tax Agency to the Civil Guard and which is “in the process of analysis” by the investigators within the case of the Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona against Enríquez Negreira, his son Javier, the Barça itself and its top leader Joan Laporta and former presidents such as Sandor Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, among other former directors, for the continued crimes of corruption between individuals in the sporting field, unfair administration, document falsification and bribery.

After six months of investigations, investigators have confirmed that the 7.3 million euros paid by Barça were almost 7.6, after locating “certain differences” in the amounts in the initial Treasury report, from March 2022, to another of September of this year carried out by the Civil Guard with more documents found relating to the payment of these amounts. In the police report delivered to Judge Joaquín Aguirre it is indicated that in almost two decades the companies of Enríquez Negreira, in which his son Javier also appears, received these 7.6 million euros but only declared 7.4 to the Tax Agency.

The Civil Guard suspects that “one of the main reasons why FC Barcelona may have decided to hire José María Enríquez Negreira could have been because of his ability to influence and participate in decision-making due to the position he held within of the Technical Committee of Referees; influence that, from the procedures that have been carried out, is palpable in, at least, the evaluations for arbitration promotions or relegations and/or in the designation as international referees of the members of the arbitration group.

For the moment, the agents have examined documentation from the Treasury and that seized in the registry at the Royal Spanish Football Federation and have taken numerous statements from witnesses who have explained the influence of Enríquez Negreira in the Technical Committee of Referees, as well as employees who had its companies and that were in charge of withdrawing the money from the bank accounts. Precisely, the Civil Guard wants to “clarify the final destination of the funds obtained by José María Enríquez Negreira and Javier Enríquez Romero in the framework of an alleged crime of money laundering.”

That is why the court requested documentation from eight banking entities, BBVA, Banc Sabadell, Bankia, Banco Santader, Bankinter, ING, Ibercaja and Caixabank, on accounts of the Negreiras, José María's partner, and companies related to them and their relatives since it considers, “based on investigative experience” that “not infrequently this interposition of natural and legal persons is used to use them in the process of hiding funds and assets from unjustified origins”. In this sense, the Civil Guard does not rule out that Enríquez Negreira “had channeled, at least partially, part of the funds obtained through other people in his environment given the significant withdrawals of funds from his bank accounts and those of his friends. commercial companies”.

In this way, the agents point out that in some 72 bank accounts of which Enríquez Negreria and his son are owners or authorized “other individuals and legal entities related to or controlled by them” participate.. For this reason, the court demanded this information from the banking entities since it remembers that two companies owned by Javier Enríquez invoiced their work for Barça between 2013 and 2018 to other companies controlled by José Contreras, a former Barça manager who died.. “Apparently these entities rebilled the club for those services of Javier Enríquez,” says the Civil Guard.

The police report details that Javier Enríquez declared that he did it for “not linking his father's surname with FC Barcelona”, an argument that for the Civil Guard “makes no sense” since Enríquez Negreira himself had been billing the club directly for years through his societies in which his son had “some degree of participation or control”. Furthermore, in the investigation by the Treasury and the Prosecutor's Office there are statements from the few employees of Nilsad and Dasnil who explain that they withdrew in cash or collected by check the majority of what was deposited in the bank accounts of the companies, so the tracking This money is the main priority of the investigators since black payments could be made.

The court asks each bank for information on banking movements, origin and destination of funds, check deliveries, identifying the person who cashed them or who withdrew cash from 2001 to date from the 72 accounts investigated.. Data is also requested on the rest of the banking products, both nationally and abroad, as well as their owners, amount contributed and withdrawn, and their currently consolidated rights.. In addition, the judge wants to know if the Enríquez Negreiras and their loved ones have safe deposit boxes or safes in these banks.