Tomás Pérez-Sauquillo was president of Invercaria, the public venture capital company of the Junta de Andalucía, between 2005 and 2010. When he left the entity, he left with the feeling of having fulfilled his duty, but two years after his departure, in the middle of the 2012 Andalusian election campaign, the scandal broke out. In March of that year, controversial sound recordings came to light in which the then president of the venture capital company allegedly gave instructions to her subordinate to falsify files from companies related to power that had received public money. In the audios, he is heard saying: "If I committed to ethics, I would not be working in this organization."
It was the beginning of a macro judicial investigation in the courts of Seville, which ran parallel to that of the ERE, on the management of Invercaria, the company founded 21 years ago by the Andalusian Government, chaired at that stage by the socialist Manuel Chaves. Its mission was to promote the Andalusian business fabric through injections of public money into innovative and start-up projects. However, the intended boost to emerging sectors led to the uncontrolled and arbitrary distribution of millionaire funds to businessmen related to power. This case has similarities with the ERE, another macro cause of corruption during the PSOE period. In this matter, the Board opaquely distributed public money to companies in crisis - real or fictitious - so that they could carry out employment regulation files on their staff.
The judicial investigations into Invercaria led to a macro-case that was divided into twenty different pieces and, in all of them, the main protagonist, whether as accused, convicted or acquitted, is Tomás Pérez-Sauquillo. In fact, he has already sat on the bench fourteen times in the Seville Court for crimes of embezzlement and prevarication, of which he has been acquitted seven times and another seven convicted. The sentences imposed on him total 21 and a half years in prison, although he never went to prison.
Chaves and Griñán
While the PSOE has politically rehabilitated the former presidents of the Junta de Andalucía, Chaves and Griñán, and the rest of the former senior officials, such as Magdalena Álvarez, who were convicted by the ERE and partially protected by the Constitutional Court (TC), no one from the PSOE vindicates the former president of Invercaria.
"I'm not from the PSOE or the PP," he tells EL MUNDO, in a telephone conversation from his residence in Madrid. He alleges that his signing in Invercaria was not due to his links with the PSOE, which, according to him, were non-existent and even, "if they had told me that something had to be done with a militant, I would have left the next day." The connection came from his friendship with the then Minister of Innovation, Francisco Vallejo, one of Chaves' strong men, who trusted him to launch the Board's venture capital company.
Specifically, Vallejo, convicted and protected by the TC for the ERE, was sentenced by the Seville Court last July to a three-year prison sentence in the Invercaria piece on Servivation, the Malaga company into which the Board illegally injected 1.1 million, despite the "wild absenteeism from work" that it recorded. The same sentence fell on Pérez-Sauquillo. The case regarding Invercaria and its multiple derivatives has not affected other ministries, beyond that of Innovation, nor to the highest leadership of the Andalusian Government, as it did with the ERE.
"I am totally in no man's land. Neither the PSOE nor the PP have said: 'Hey, what you are doing with this man is outrageous,'" says Pérez-Sauquillo, referring to his procedural situation over the last fourteen years, with constant summonses in court, in addition to the fourteen times he has sat on the bench and those that still lie ahead. In this macro judicial case, the PP carries out the accusation and requests high prison sentences for the former president of Invercaria. "The PP has made a complete mistake," says Pérez-Sauquillo.
Turning 80 last May, the former president of Invercaria has managed to avoid prison due to his delicate state of health. Four final convictions from the Supreme Court weigh on him, totaling thirteen years in prison. One of them is for the loan of 100,000 euros granted by Invercaria to the company Aceitunas Tatis in 2009, which sought to promote with public money an "erotic line" of table olives that included products called "spicy polvazos", "sweet horns", "polvitos" or "lengüetazos". None of this was done.
Inflated salary
Another sentence from the Supreme Court of 4 and a half years in prison is for raising the salary to 152,000 gross euros per year and the third - three years in prison - is for the credit of 1.5 million to businessmen linked to the PSOE for a failed project: Cedes Electria. The fourth is two years in prison for the Fumapa project. In addition to the four final sentences, there are three other sentences of the Court that are appealable.
Given the first final conviction, in 2023, the Court ordered his "immediate voluntary entry into prison, with express warning" that, if he did not do so within the maximum period of 10 days, his "search and capture" would be ordered. But, given the serious pathologies suffered by Pérez-Sauquillo, the order was postponed. The coroner has already examined it three times, the last last October. "He told me that he didn't want to see me anymore because I am a chronic patient who has no solution," Pérez-Sauquillo clarifies.
He knows, therefore, that he will not go to prison, but "that is not enough for me" because, despite the seven sentences that condemn him, he maintains that his management at the head of the public company of the Junta was correct and he never took "not one euro" of public money.
In addition to the convictions, Pérez-Sauquillo has also been acquitted seven times by the Seville Court. "My professional life prior to Invercaria is impeccable and I think that is the reason I was chosen. I have started from scratch many times by not admitting any irregularity in my time before the Board. Despite this, I am now more than retired and older than in Methuselah, pending a story that has devastated me and made the last years of my life bitter."
Regarding the decisions he made in Invercaria, he maintains that he never allowed any "interference" from his superiors. "Anyone who knows me knows that I would not have allowed it. If they had told me something along those lines, it would have taken me two minutes to leave," he adds. He emphasizes that the seven sentences against him are not due to him stealing or diverting public money for other purposes, but are due to the fact that "there is a lack of documentation, but those analyzes existed," he says.
