The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office warns that the investigation that is now being carried out in the National Court for the cash payments of the PSOE, would not only point to a possible crime of money laundering to which the Supreme Court has already referred, but also to a possible “embezzlement committed against the party” by those investigated in the Koldo case, “in addition to other possible irregularities“.
For this reason, he has asked the judge in the Koldo case, Ismael Moreno, to require Ferraz the cash payment ratio and documents that prove this between the years 2017 and 2024, that is, since Pedro Sánchez regained the general secretary of the party until last year. The request, which has already been agreed upon by the investigating magistrate, is part of the doubts generated by the cash payments that Koldo García received during the years under investigation and which, according to the statements made by the former party manager Mariano Moreno Pavón and the employee Celia Rodríguez, They went to the Organization Secretariat which was then directed by José Luis Ábalos.
The Prosecutor’s request widens the focus to all cash payments made by the training then and for those who would have withdrawn more than a million euros from the bank, according to the information that Ferraz voluntarily submitted to the high court two days before Pavón and Rodríguez testified. It is worth remembering that these witnesses even pointed out that the cash payment system did not apply only to the department of Ábalos, but also to “the entire Executive.”
Review of the payment system
Thus, the focus transcends the subscriptions to Ábalos’ former advisor and is placed on a whole cash payment system that could even remain in force, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. “Nor have the reasons been sufficiently explained that advised that said economic compensation (…) be made in cash, at what time this procedure was initiated, If it hadn’t always been like thisand at what point it definitively ceased, if it ceased,” says the Anti-Corruption prosecutor of the Koldo case in the National Court, Luis Pastor.
The suspicions of the Prosecutor’s Office increased after the statements of Pavón and Rodríguez, since they did not clear up the unknowns about this expense settlement system. Specifically, Rodríguez explained that since 2021, cash payments have not been made for training. Given this statement, the chief anti-corruption prosecutor Alejandro Luzón reminded him that Ferraz continued paying cash to Santos Cerdán until even the end of 2024. Specifically, there are a total of 15 liquidations.
“Do you remember?” he asked Rodríguez, who served as secretary of the former socialist leader after replacing Ábalos in the Organization department. However, the witness ended up concluding that she did not remember. Similarly, the researchers were also surprised by the fact that It was not verified that the cash reached its supposed recipients or that they did not verify the authenticity of the invoices; work that they delegated to “Administration”.
Payments greater than 1,000 euros
Thus, the appearance of the witnesses in the high court, far from clearing up the doubts of the magistrate and the prosecutor, increased them further. The same thing happened with the documentary that Ferraz delivered after the Civil Guard warned of the imbalance in the expenses received by Ábalos. The party provided information that had not been included in the previous requirements and also revealed that some payments made in cash They exceeded the limit of 1,000 euros established in the Law to Fight Tax Fraud that the PSOE Government approved in 2021.
For this reason, this part of the investigations was referred to the National Court, which is now taking the first steps to clarify the origin of these payments. Investigators suspect that with this money they could launder money from illicit activities, since the investigation would have confirmed that the ringleaders they used cash during the years that the alleged plot operated and that it could come from alleged irregular commissions.
In that sense, businessman Víctor de Aldama has confirmed not only the alleged collection of gifts, but also that paid 10,000 euros per month to Koldo García in exchange for keeping the doors of the Administration open to benefit their companies. It should be remembered that among the documentation that Puente sent to the National Court related to the PSOE fund was Aldama’s confession from December last year, in which he said that 4 million euros in commissions would have been derived from Ferraz from illicit bites.
The PSOE continues as a popular accusation
To this is also added the testimony of Carmen Panothe businesswoman who claims that she did two deliveries of 90,000 euros in Ferraz in 2020 by order of Víctor de Aldama. These indications led the Popular Party and the rest of the accusations presented in the proceedings to ask Judge Moreno to withdraw the status of popular accusation from the PSOE. According to what they explained, his situation makes him “incompatible” with this figure, since the investigation could end up affecting the political formation led by Sánchez.
However, neither Anticorruption nor the magistrate have evaluated this possibility. On the contrary, they responded that the training has not been investigated, nor has any senior official within it, so, at least for now, there is no reason to expel him from the procedure.