Expatica news

Spain police arrest 13 in high-speed rail corruption probe

Spanish police arrested 13 people Tuesday suspected of overbilling state rail company Adif by over 82 million euros for works on a high-speed rail link between Madrid and Barcelona, authorities said.

As part of the operation, police searched the headquarters of private and public firms in the two cities that took part in the construction of a railway station in Barcelona for the link.

Anti-corruption prosecutors earlier said in a statement that 14 people had been arrested, all “employees who played a significant role in the certification and execution of the works under investigation.”

But the court in Barcelona which is overseeing the investigation later revised the number down to 13.

The probe was opened following a complaint from debt-ridden Adif, the state track operator which estimates it was overbilled by over 82 million euros ($90 million) for the project by subcontractors, prosecutors said.

Police in 2014 arrested a dozen people as part of another probe into the suspected overbilling of around six million euros for works on another stretch of the same high-speed railway line.

Spain has spent billions of euros to build the second-biggest high-speed network in the world after China’s.