That project is still under periodic debate. Montaña Tindaya is still intact. But any attempts to explore the “black hole” into which countless millions of pesetas disappeared are routinely blocked.

That was the Caso Tindaya. Now comes the Caso Megaturbinas, a case which has been rumbling on for several weeks but which culminated, on February 9, with the arrest of seven people, among them several high-ranking civil servants, one of them Celso Perdomo, the former regional director general for industry, in a simultaneous operation carried out in Las Palmas and the Spanish capital, Madrid.

The detentions were part of the ongoing investigation into alleged dirty dealings and the stitching up of a public tender to build wind farms in the Canary Islands to benefit a number of “friendly” firms who were privately primed of the conditions ahead of their rivals.

The police rifled through documents in thirteen offices in both cities searching for further incriminating evidence to add to the growing pile which is proving to be a source of acute embarrassment for the region’s chattering classes.

Those arrested in the swoop, codenamed Operación Eolo, were named as Celso Perdomo, who currently occupies a senior position in the Gran Canaria Cabildo; Honorato López Torres, director of services in the Dirección General de Industria; Mónica Quintana, a senior official in the Cabildo’s education department and romantically linked to Perdomo; Wilebaldo Yánez, Enerique Guzmán and Alfredo Briganti, all businessmen implicated in the deal, and Jesús González Martín, a senior executive of the Caja Insular de Ahorros de Canarias.

It was the persistent allegations made by PSOE members of Parliament of wrong-doing that eventually brought the scandal into the public domain and instigated a police investigation.

Under the judge appointed to the case investigations appear to be having a domino-like effect with more personalities taking a tumble. Information uncovered led to the implication of no lesser figure than the president of the Las Palmas Provincial Chamber, José Antonio Martín y Martín, in a case of “conferring special treatment” on a notorious local drug trafficker. He has been relieved of his duties pending further inquiries.

The government squirm factor was ratcheted up even more last week when emails entered into the wind farm equation, apparently containing references to the payment of “commissions” to a number of politicians.
Observers do not rule out that names even further up the political greasy pole will be outed in the coming days and weeks as the investigation progresses.