The Court of Auditors has already delivered to the National Court a key list for the investigation into whether there was irregular financing in the PSOE. Sources close to the investigation tell EL MUNDO that the auditing body has already sent in a sealed envelope a pendrive with the list of names and surnames of people who have made donations to the PSOE in the last decade.
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As this newspaper reported on the 9th, the investigating judge Ismael Moreno requested information from both the PSOE and the Court of Auditors about the donations received by the ruling party within the secret case he is handling. His investigation is not limited to the strange evolution of the amounts received – in 2020 a record was set despite Spain being in a state of alarm – but also to the identity of those making the donations.
The list received is essential to clarify the testimony of Víctor de Aldama that he paid illegal commissions to the PSOE that were channeled through multiple apparently legal donations. The operation consisted, according to Aldama, of him giving cash to Koldo García, the advisor to the then PSOE Secretary of Organization, José Luis Ábalos, who ensured that party militants or sympathizers delivered it to Ferraz as if it were an individual donation. This is what is called “smurfing,” because the political party financing law allows receiving contributions, but in limited amounts – up to 10,000 or 50,000 euros, depending on the case – so it would have been necessary to split among a group of alleged donors the up to 300,000 euros that Aldama claims reached Ferraz as a commission for Venezuelan oil.
The National Court has requested donation data available between 2017 – when Pedro Sánchez was elected secretary general with Ábalos and Santos Cerdán in his closest circle – and 2024. The PSOE, for its part, has also sent the information, as Sánchez himself revealed on the 9th during his appearance on TVE. It is unprecedented for the Prime Minister to disclose judicial actions in secret cases, but he revealed that “now” the party has been asked for the donations and that they have been delivered accordingly. He emphasized that those received by his party are “within the law.”
It is striking that the judge requested donations from both the PSOE and the Court of Auditors, because theoretically the list is similar. The auditing body requests the list from all parties every year to verify if donors meet the requirements. The list is always kept secret and public reports only provide total amounts received and never the identities of those who deposit money. The Court of Auditors has not alerted to irregular donations in its annual reports on the PSOE, but, as the president, Enriqueta Chicano, has explained on several occasions, its auditing body cannot detect alleged slush funds because it lacks the powers and means to know if the money given by a donor comes from a commission for the party.
The extensive list of donors in those years forces the investigating judge to assign a laborious investigation to the judicial police. For example, it is necessary to detect the presence of donors linked to Koldo García, Ábalos, or Cerdán and whether they had money to make such a generous contribution to the party or if they received it beforehand in cash.
The trigger for this investigation is Aldama’s testimonies, which place the strange company Apamate Corporate & Trust as the epicenter of illegal fund deliveries to finance the PSOE and the Socialist International and has also recounted commissions from construction companies through public works awards. Throughout his two secret testimonies, given during the past March and July, he explained to Judge Ismael Moreno that after Ábalos and Koldo García requested money to finance the party at the end of 2019, it was the “Zapatero environment” that imposed on him to organize the operation with this company, controlled by the mysterious businessman Francisco Flores.
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According to what this newspaper has learned, Aldama has stated within the framework of the investigations followed by the National Court’s Investigating Court number 2 that, after talking with the then Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, he was put in contact with Apamate to channel the arrival of funds to Spain from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. Always according to his version, the former Minister of Transport and his right-hand man urged him to organize a first operation in the form of an advance on the concession of a millionaire oil quota of 249 million that would formally be granted a couple of months later.
The first transfer was channeled through Russia to evade international sanctions and Aldama has provided documentation to support his testimony.
Continuing with Aldama’s account, Francisco Flores was a businessman very close to the Maduro regime, but especially to Jorge Rodríguez, Delcy’s brother and president of the National Assembly. Not surprisingly, the current acting president of the Caribbean country made it clear to him that he was not a person strictly of her trust, but of Jorge’s. Flores also became, a few months after this operation investigated by the Spanish Justice, one of the clients of the consultancy promoted by the former Spanish Prime Minister, Análisis Relevante. To this company, used according to the investigator for collecting commissions, Flores paid 120,000 euros.
The former Spanish leader, who maintained a close relationship with Flores, also arranged for him to be treated by Spanish doctors and maintained a fluid relationship with him. However, Zapatero has denied having knowledge of Flores’ participation in operations to finance the PSOE and rejects having participated in any such maneuver. Ábalos and Koldo have also stated from Soto del Real prison that they never asked him for money for the party or the Socialist International. Sánchez also denied it on TVE.
Aldama claims the operation had to be abruptly stopped
The testimony of Víctor de Aldama is key to this secret investigation into the PSOE’s financing. He claims the origin is the granting of a license to operate with Venezuelan crude worth 249 million for which Koldo García and Ábalos asked him for commission payments. According to his version, at least 300,000 euros sent to Spain through a fictitious contract with the strange Apamate Corporate & Trust via the simulated purchase and sale of Aldama’s companies were handed directly to Ábalos’ former personal advisor. Aldama also declared that this mechanism to transfer large amounts ended up being abruptly interrupted without all the planned payments being made.
