Tax inspectors failed to spot any irregularities in the financial affairs of a housing boss said to be at the heart of a € 2.4 billion civic corruption scandal in Marbella.
As Madrid formally dissolved the city of council of Marbella on Friday, it emerged that an inspection in 2003 failed to find the millions of euros amassed by Juan Antonio Roca, allegedly through graft, Spanish daily El Pais reported.
Roca is said to be the brains behind a large-scale bribery and embezzlement scandal which has led to the arrest of 26 people including members of the city council, among them the mayor, the head of the local police, lawyers and businessmen.
Graft-ridden property deals allowed Roca to buy several large country estates, luxury chalets, hotels and other businesses across the Costa del Sol.
He furnished some with hundreds of works of art, even keeping a painting by Joan Miró in his toilet.
A collection of luxury and antique cars were parked in the driveways of his properties.
But tax inspectors found nothing untoward when they looked into the property records and bank accounts of Roca and his wife in 2003, discovering only his legal earnings of EUR 150,000 from his job as head of urban planning in Marbella.
Roca probably managed to avoid arousing suspicions by carefully concealing how he spent his ill-gotten gains.
Most are thought to have been registered through front companies registered by lawyers in Madrid and with no links to the disgraced official.
