Prosecutor Sees Evidence of Forgery in La Murada and Orihuela Costa Festival accounts
The alleged falsification of invoices used to justify municipal festival subsidies in the Orihuela districts of La Murada and Orihuela Costa continues to advance through the courts.
Following a criminal investigation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has concluded that there are indications of document forgery involving the presidents of both festival committees.
The prosecution has decided to process each case independently, as it sees no connection between the two sets of alleged criminal acts. Both matters have now been forwarded to the Court of First Instance in Orihuela.
Part of the evidence stems from a complaint filed by Héctor Mateo Sigüenza, secretary of the La Murada committee and Vox adviser, who reported the falsification of his signature on a document used in the subsidy justification. His accusation coincided with the City Council’s own investigation into suspected irregularities in the handling of public funds granted for 2024 festival activities.
The political context adds weight to the case. La Murada is one of Vox’s strongest electoral bases in Orihuela, and the now-questioned committee president, Berná, had served as an adviser to Mayor Pepe Vegara (PP) until stepping down due to the affair. The council is demanding the return of €19,280 from the La Murada committee and €7,352 from the recently formed Orihuela Costa committee.
The City Council submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office a detailed technical report covering 117 files and outlining alleged invoice manipulations totalling €26,632. These funds had been advanced at the end of 2023 as municipal subsidies intended to support festival programmes.
Municipal accountants flagged numerous discrepancies, including invoices that did not correspond to actual payments or services received, suppliers who refused to respond to verification requests, and repeated failures by both committees to clarify evident inconsistencies.
In La Murada, a striking example was an €8,900 invoice for hiring the local musical group Juventud Musical, which in reality received only €2,000. Another set of invoices—totalling more than €13,700 for festival programmes—was eventually confirmed by the Tax Agency to have been largely fabricated, with only one invoice for €1,742 deemed legitimate.
In Orihuela Costa, the committee submitted bank transfer receipts whose altered figures were visually evident due to mismatched font sizes. Even after resubmission, the receipts remained inconsistent with genuine bank formats, and the bank later confirmed that no such transactions existed.
After the investigation became public, Berná issued a statement defending the committee’s actions, accusing the City Council of procedural irregularities, violating the presumption of innocence, and promoting what he described as a politically driven narrative.
