Orihuela courts have opened an investigation into the illegal sale of scrap metal by council employees that has allegedly been taken from a municipal storage compound on the Molins road, next to the Local Police Headquarters.
The fraud is said to have been going on since at least 2019 although it is thought to date back much further. Staff acknowledge that inventories of scrap deposits into the municipal warehouse are not maintained so there is no record of the incomings or the sales or the subsequent disposals.
According to the Spanish Newspaper Diario Informacion, the managers sent staff to sell scrap pieces that had been withdrawn from use and stored in the municipal warehouse.
The staff visited several companies – in the Polígono de Puente Alto, Almoradí, Los Montesinos and on the road to Alicante-Murcia – and after they had made the sale, they passed the cash to the manager who made free use of it, without transferring it to the municipal accounts.
According to several witnesses, as Christmas was approaching, every year, the manager ordered that the metal elements be taken to a local scrapyard in order to boost the fund.
The money, thought to be in the region of 7,600 euros, was spent on staff lunches, as well as the installation of two air conditioners, which cost 1,300 euros, and two televisions, that were placed in the rest areas used by the gangs of both masons and gardeners.
In May 2023, a Treasury report found that the municipal accounts have no record of any income from the sale of scrap.
