Police have arrested businessman José Luis Aneri on suspicion of massive fraud against both the state and the regional government of Madrid.
An investigation found that around 15 million euros in state and regional funds were used to sponsor phoney training programmes for non-existent students, the fraud being carried out for many years. Aneri acted as the mediator between government agencies and the companies allegedly signing up their workers for the training courses.
As it seems highly unlikely that one man alone could manage such a massive fraud without any assistance from third parties, further detentions are not being ruled out.
Aneri allegedly acted as the contact person who filed for the aid in the companies’ names was also in charge of implementing the training programmes through a network of companies headed by Sinergia Empresarial.
Aneri specialized in courses allegedly provided through a digital platform, but there were no actual courses and no real students. It was Sinergia workers who designed the phony coursework by copying appropriate-sounding content from the internet or from books.