Leire Díez, the self-proclaimed envoy of Santos Cerdán to “clean up” Spanish Justice and, according to Judge Pedraz, “destabilize” judicial cases surrounding the PSOE, always boasted whenever she could about her contacts with the Police and Civil Guard, and even met on three occasions with Mercedes González, who systematically deleted all chats with the so-called plumber of Ferraz.
All of this became evident in a meeting between Leire Díez and Civil Guard officer Juan Sánchez Yepes, who had been in the Central Operative Unit, the police group Leire sought to attack, for 14 years.
Yepes, also indicted by Pedraz today, wanted, investigators maintain, to achieve a job promotion by collaborating with Leire, who was introduced to him as a person sent “by the PSOE”. The plumber made her connection with high authorities clear to him: “Initially, my next conversation will be with the Director of the Civil Guard […]. She is trustworthy“. Yepes replied: “I don’t trust anything”. And Leire retorted: “Look, listen to me, this already transcends you”.
After the conversation, the allegedly criminal group decided to look for material in the hydrocarbon plot called Operation Drake to try to undermine the UCO. Leire had come that same day, agents believe, from a previous meeting with Santos Cerdán and with lawyer Ismael Oliver, at the Don Lay restaurant in Madrid. Jacobo Teijelo introduced Díez to Yepes as “a PSOE person”.
Díez tells him, as heard in the audio: “For me to be able to protect you, what I need to know is who, how, where, when, and why. Helping in the judicial case, as best one helps in this country, if we consider that all these people are close to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office“. To which the Civil Guard officer responds: “But then the one who needs to be killed is the anti-corruption prosecutor”.
Investigators say: “Guided by Leire’s questions, Yepes, who had been a member of the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit between 2008 and 2022, provides information concerning the unit’s structure, its members, or the functions of each of them, focusing his attention on the Lieutenant Colonel Head of the Economic and Anti-Corruption Investigation Department of the UCO”. That is, Antonio Balas.
Yepes tells Leire: “Mr. Antonio Balas, lieutenant colonel head of the Department, is the one who does whatever he wants, he is the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office Unit, of the economic crime groups, and will probably be the next head of UCO […]. All of this is secret, I am committing a crime of revealing secrets“, Yepes admits to her, yet still reveals all the compromising information they ask for.
It is with that information that Leire then goes to Alejandro Hamlyn, the hydrocarbon businessman sought by Spanish Justice and fled to Dubai, and asks him for help to attack Balas, with the famous phrase: “I want Balas, give me Balas”.
Yepes is also asked in the recording, which is part of the summary of the PSOE’s sewers, what Balas’s ideological affiliation is.
Leire: What ideological affiliation does [Balas] have?
Yepes: Well, I’d swear he leans more to the right than to the left.
Dolset: Look, there’s a piece of information he gave us that’s key: if he’s the guy who did the ERE.
Leire: Well, don’t tell us any more.
