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The Civil Guard involves the representative of the Barcelona Port Authority in China, Joan Dedeu Bargallo, in the operation to sell Russian gas to China, for an amount of 6 million dollars, which would have served to finance the process and the stay of the fugitive Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo.
The contacts of the Puigdemont team (arrested this Thursday in Sardinia and released 20 hours later) with businessmen from Vladimir Putin’s orbit and members of the Kremlin intelligence services have tarnished the image of the former president of the Generalitat in Europe. Something that can be decisive in the judicial battle that is going to be fought to settle its possible delivery to Spain.
The reports sent by the Civil Guard to Judge Joaquín Aguirre indicate that a company owned by Joan Dedeu, China Consultants, based in Hong Kong, acted as an intermediary for the Chinese company Gulf Energy to pay Intek-Broker LLC $ 295,500, as a guarantee of 5% to ensure the purchase of Russian gas.
All the documents of this operation were on the iPhone 8 mobile phone of the head of Carles Puigdemont’s office in Waterloo, the historian Josep Lluís Alay, when he was arrested, on October 28, 2020. Alay had already been arrested before, on March 25, 2018, when he was traveling through Germany with Puigdemont.
Alay kept on his mobile phone half a dozen emails exchanged between those responsible for the two companies involved in the sale of Russian gas, Intek-Broker LLC y la china Gulf Energy, to negotiate the agreement and the way in which the advance payment of $ 295,500 should be made. All messages are copied to Joan Dedeu.
Josep Lluís Alay during an intervention in a TV3 program.
Source: TV3
The Civil Guard figures in 181.000 euros the public money that Joan Dedeu’s companies (which still appears on the website of the public entity as a representative of the port of Barcelona in China) has received from the Barcelona Port Authority.
The Barcelona Port Authority, chaired at that time by Mercè Conesa, awarded in May 2016 a contract of 134,000 euros to Joan Dedeu’s company, China Consultants, to promote the port of Barcelona in China.
A year later, in May 2017, Dedeu formed a joint venture with the Barcelona Port Authority and one of the largest cruise companies in the world, to attract 5,000 Chinese tourists a year to Barcelona.
The other intermediary in the gas sales operation to China was the Russian businessman Alexander Dmitrenko, to which Joan Canadell (current deputy of Junts per Catalunya) appointed in June 2020 as “ambassador” of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce for Russia.
Russian mafia
The Ministry of Justice denied Dmitrenko Spanish nationality in October 2020, after the National Intelligence Center (CNI) indicated in a report that it has “proven knowledge of Dmitrenko’s conscious work for the Russian intelligence services and of his contacts. with leaders of transactional organized crime of Russian origin, for those who perform different tasks “.
According to the Telegram messages found on his mobile phone, the businessman Alexander Dmitrenko kept the head of the Puigdemont office promptly informed, Josep Lluís Alay, on all the advances in the negotiation of the contract for the sale of Russian gas to China. The Civil Guard points out in its reports that Carles Puigdemont himself, his lawyer Gonzalo boye and businessman Joan Canadell were aware of the details of the operation.
In one of these emails, the CEO of the Chinese company Gulf Energy, Andrés Pena, communicates to Intek-Broker LLC (with a copy to Joan Dedeu): “We have made the deposit of 5% in accordance with the terms of the contract. Please see attached the bank transfer and report having received it. “It presumably refers to the payment of the $ 295,500 agreed upon as collateral.
“We are very happy with our decision,” adds the message, “and we consider it a first step to consolidate a long-term strategic alliance with Intek-Broker LLC & Lukoil-Litasko in China”.
Translation carried out by the Civil Guard of the email sent by the CEO of the Chinese company Gulf Energy, Andrés Pena.
You then ask your interlocutor to provide you with technical information about the Progorodnoye terminal, at the Russian island of Sakhalin, and the name and characteristics of the vessel that will transport the LPG (liquefied petroleum gas).
“If the port of Sakhalin is open and you agree,” he adds, “I would personally travel to Sakhalin to be present at the loading and unloading of the first ship. For this, send me an invitation letter from Intek-Broker LLC to process my russian visa“.
Own Alexander Dmitrenko He responded to this message with the following email: “We await the transfer confirmation document approved by the bank and / or SWIFT message to proceed with the corresponding payments with our accountants.”
“It would be extremely important to have a conference call to discuss the necessary details about continuity and procedures,” he adds. Dmitrenko signs this message as CEO of Hispaniapetrol SL, based on the Rambla de Catalunya.
Putin’s adviser
However, difficulties arose in the transaction: the Hong Kong-based Bank of Communications Co. Ltd refused to accept the transfer to a Russian financial institution.
As a consequence, according to the messages intervened by the Civil Guard, the payment of the $ 295,500 had to be made from the private account of the director of Gulf Energy, Man Si, from DBS Bank of Hong Kong to Alfa Bank of Russia.
Through the Telegram application, Alexander Dmitrenko informed Josep Lluís Alay of the difficulties that had arisen in the Russian gas contract with China: “They tell me that [Joan] Dedeu has not done his job of validating the Chinese side, “he communicated on July 4, 2020,” they tell us that we cannot open a bank account for an operation of 20 million per month. Good grief, what a pathetic excuse after six months of negotiating. “
“Which characters, this Dedeu is an inept“Alay replied in the Telegram chat. Dmitrenko agreed:” He is 70 years old. It makes me angry to think that his experience does not work … I have always respected older people a lot “.
Dmitrenko shows his discomfort to Josep Alay, in a Telegram chat on July 4, 2020, because Joan Dedeu “has not done his job” to guarantee payments from China.
According to information published by the Russian press in October 2020, Alexander Dmitrenko is a partner of Artem Lukoyanov in a limited liability company founded in London, AA Plus Wealth Management, which manages a private investment fund of five million euros.
Artem Lukoyanov is the son of the first wife of Vladislav Surkov, who was until February 2020 chief of staff and personal adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the same information, Lukoyanov is also the manager of the Rubitech company, which last year obtained contracts from the Russian government for the amount of 11,000 million rubles (about 128.6 million euros).
According to Civil Guard reports, Artem Lukoyanov traveled to Barcelona three times in 2018 (on April 8, September 15 and October 17). A year earlier, on September 5, 2017, he had stayed in Mallorca with his wife, Olga Lukaiaonva.
Artem Lukoyanov, in a picture published by the Russian press.
On the same day that he assumed the leadership of the Puigdemont office in Waterloo, in June 2018, Quim Roast put Josep Lluís Alay a public salary as coordinator of International Policies of the Presidency of the Generalitat, to finance his activities.
In a document signed on July 20, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office objected to the head of the Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona, Joaquín Aguirre, requesting new proceedings on the sale of Russian gas to China to finance the process, considering that it is a “prospective research“not allowed by law.
However, the Provincial Court of Barcelona this week has rejected the thesis of the Prosecutor’s Office and has urged Judge Aguirre to continue with the investigation to determine if Russia has supported, financially or with intelligence means, the process of independence of Catalonia.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com