Roberto García Martínez, managing director and main driving force behind the wolfram extraction project at the A Gudiña mine (Ourense), is currently in pretrial detention in Sweden.
"This is what the Swedish mining company Eurobattery Minerals AB, the promoter of the mine, transferred this Saturday, in which García serves as a board member and chief executive officer."
The company has said in a statement that for the time being "they do not have any more details about this matter, but they will provide an update when more information is available".
"Last September, Ecoloxistas en acción requested that the Xunta halt the A Gudiña mine project until all pending legal, environmental and administrative issues are clarified after the criminal conviction for fraud of its chief executive officer, Roberto García Martínez, became public."
"This is because, Eurobattery Minerals announced the immediate departure of its chairman and the termination of the relationship with Mangold Fondkommission AB, the entity that served as the company’s financial mentor."
"As set out in the judgment, ratified on January 21, 2026, which Europa Press obtained access to, the Provincial Court of Bizcaia convicted García Martínez and another as authors of a fraud offense, sentencing them to two years in prison and a fine of eight months with a daily quota of 30 euros. In addition, both should indemnify Agrupación Gestora Empresarial S.A (Agruges) in the amount of 3,460,000 American dollars."
"As the resolution related, the convicted parties presented themselves in 2010 before Agruges members as owners of a gold mining operation in Sierra Leone who were interested in obtaining financing for large-scale industrialization of the business of extracting and selling gold and diamonds."
"After holding various conversations, both convicted parties received a series of transfers for this purpose that made up a total of 3,460,000 dollars. However, this money was not used for the agreed purpose."
"In addition to this conviction, Swedish media said that an investigation into Roberto García was underway in the country for various economic offenses. Finally, pretrial detention has been ordered for the CEO of the Galician mine, a project that was halted as a result of the scandal."