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Date Published: 10/08/2022

ARCHIVED - Missing Murcia tax advisor hands himself into police and claims he was extorted

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The well-known Murcia man was thought to have faked his own death to avoid capture

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Missing Murcia tax advisor hands himself into police and claims he was extorted

José Luis Galiana, a respected tax advisor who went missing from his Murcia home in February this year, has handed himself in to the National Police at the Sangonera La Verde station and claims to have been a victim of “economic extortion.”

The well-known husband and father disappeared earlier this year and his family feared the worst when his high-end Audi was found pitched off the rocks at Punta Prima, just outside Torrevieja, two weeks later. However, investigators found no sign of the driver and the absence of skid marks on the road led them to believe that Mr Galiana had deliberately crashed his car.

The case broke wide open in April when a former colleague of the tax advisor contacted the police in Pilar de la Horadada and told them that the bank account of a bankruptcy client, which should have contained 600,000 euros, had recently been cleaned out. Mr Galiana had access to this account.

Since this breakthrough, the Economic and Fiscal Crime Group (UDEF) has been building an embezzlement case against the missing man, and he voluntarily appeared before the National Police on Tuesday August 9 in an attempt to clear his name.

During his four-hour interview, Mr Galiana claimed that some unknown individual had made threats against his wife and children and forced him to transfer the 600,000 euros to an undisclosed company account; fearing for his family, he did just that, and insists that he didn’t keep a penny for himself.

When asked about his car wreck, the fugitive explained that he had driven to the cliffs in Punta Prima with the intention of killing himself but backed out at the last minute; he abandoned his vehicle and fled to another European country where he has been hiding out ever since. After he transferred the funds, the extortion reportedly stopped and he felt that it was safe to return to Spain.

Mr Galiana now faces charges for misappropriation, money laundering and document falsification and has been temporarily released until he appears before the Investigating Court number 7 of Murcia on September 29.

According to his defence attorney, Pablo Ruiz-Palacios, the suspect is cooperating fully with investigators and has already offered “very specific and relevant data” to help in locating the missing money.

Image: Archive

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