A businessman from Alicante arrested for hiding the work accident of an operator who worked without a contract | Valencian Community

The National Police has arrested in Alicante the owner of a company dedicated to the installation of air conditioners for trying to hide a serious accident suffered by an employee who lacked a contract. The worker, who was not registered with Social Security, suffered a fall from a height of three meters that caused a spinal cord injury and has left consequences. While he was being transferred to a hospital, the arrested man convinced him to lie and say that the fall had occurred at his home, by hanging a television on a wall. Both the businessman and his wife, also arrested, have been charged with a crime against the safety of workers and a crime of serious injury due to recklessness. Currently, both are free, waiting to be called to appear before a judge.

According to the investigation, those arrested, aged 40 and 32, recruited through social networks foreign employees unprepared for the installation of air conditioners, who were subjected to nine-hour work days, Monday through Friday and Friday. even some Saturdays, for 180 euros per week. The workers were in an irregular situation, a circumstance that the detainees took advantage of to not sign any contracts or register them with Social Security, and they worked “in the absence of labor protection means.” Consulted by the agents in charge of the investigation, the The Alicante Labor Inspectorate also certified that the employer “lacked even any type of license that empowers him to install refrigeration equipment.”

In the middle of last May, one of the company’s workers, a 22-year-old Venezuelan who had barely been with the firm for two months, had to climb a ladder, about three meters high, to install some cooling ducts in a closed workshop. Despite his lack of experience, he was alone. Due to carelessness, he suffered “a spectacular fall”, reports the National Police, and his body hit the ground, on top of the stairs. The operator, who could not move or reach his mobile phone, “began screaming for help” until his boss arrived “a few minutes later.” The businessman “helped him get up to take him to the hospital in his own van”, although he had to pick him up to get him into the vehicle since the victim could not walk.

While driving to the hospital, the businessman convinced the injured worker to say “that he had fallen at his home while hanging a television”, police sources continue, so as not to have “problems with Immigration”. He even went to the home of the victim to pick up his passport. Once hospitalized, the operator narrated the version devised by his boss and was subjected to medical tests. The health services detected a “vertebral fracture with spinal cord injury” that required emergency surgery, so they notified the victim’s roommate by phone.

After the operation, around May 25, according to the sources consulted, both the victim and his friend were informed that “they had to pay the medical expenses”, so they contacted the victim’s boss. The businessman assured them “that everything had already been discussed, that he would take care of everything and that in two hours he would go to the hospital.” He did not see his hair again and cut off any type of communication with those affected. At that moment, the injured operator decided to tell the reality of the accident to his friend and asked him to call the police.

The investigation fell to the Violent Crime Group of the Judicial Police of Alicante, which in less than a week discovered all the anomalies that involved both the accident and the company for which the victim worked. On June 1, they arrested the businessman and his partner, the labor recruiter, who was also aware of the irregular status of the employees. Both remain free pending testimony in court.