Madrid-Barcelona high-speed AVE works 'inflated by €82m'; works managers and civil servants arrested

Rail board infrastructure management firm ADIF is said to have presented reports to the prosecution warning that estimates for works and the resulting invoices for three stretches of the AVE line had been deliberately priced way above the book value, the idea being that the surplus would be split between those involved in the fraud.

This means €82m of public funds, or taxpayers' money, would disappear into the culprits' pockets.

The chunk of the line affected, which includes the station at La Sagrera, is not yet finished.

ADIF offices on Madrid's C/ Titán, civil engineering firms in Madrid and Barcelona, and the ADIF headquarters at La Sagrera station have all been searched.

Those arrested, mostly linked to the construction firms and the rail board, are accused of embezzlement of public funds and forging paperwork.

Investigators are also attempting to prove that the former works managers at ADIF accepted cash bribes to silence them over the inflated invoices.

A former ADIF works manager who had already been arrested two years ago in a bribery network relating to the AVE works in Barcelona is among the 14 now in custody, who include construction firm employees and bosses and various civil servants.

The current inquiry runs parallel with the 2014 one, which is being handled by a Barcelona court and involved 10 arrests.

This previous case, involving inflated costs for the works between La Sagrera and El Nudo de la Trinitat, carried out by the construction firm Corsan, was what led to ADIF calling for an independent audit into the full AVE works between Spain's largest two cities, of which only around 20% or 30% has been finished.

The works were put on hold while ADIF investigated the costs involved.

Parts of the track had been deliberately measured twice, and 'substantial differences' were found between the works carried out and those described, leading to huge cost discrepancies.

According to the secretary of State for infrastructure, Julio Gómez-Pomar, the board of directors for the railway line development firm Barcelona Sagrera Alta Velocidad included the city council and regional government – not the current leaders, who did not come into power until a year ago – and who had not held a single meeting since 2013.

The high-speed rail link job contract was handed over to the firms involved in 2010, and was due for completion by 2020.