The engineer who created one of the great Neguri lineages

On November 11, 1996, a young lawyer from Vizcaya named Cosme left his job at the technology company EyS Consulting in the Zamudio Technology Park (Vizcaya), heading for the car parked a few meters away. As he was about to open the vehicle's door, the sound of a gun barrel disrupted his plans. An unfamiliar voice told him, "Don't move and don't look at me." The kidnapper sat him in the passenger seat and started the car, driving 500 meters to where the rest of the commando was waiting. They sedated him and immobilized him with ropes, then abandoned him in a tiny hole inside an industrial warehouse. If young Cosme had to go through this ordeal—and we'll see how it ended later—it wasn't because of his status as a lawyer for a technology company, but because of his surname: his name was Delclaux, one of the most renowned families of the Vizcayan Neguri elite. For this reason he fell into the hands of the terrorist group ETA.

Born into a lineage of engineers and businessmen with Occitan roots, Isidoro Delclaux—Cosme's great-uncle—decided to study civil engineering at Deusto and later supplement this with economics studies in London, but the First World War thwarted this second phase of his plans. His wealth began to accumulate when Isidoro decided to expand the metal and glass buying and selling business he inherited from his father, transforming it into a factory capable of producing a wide range of products, from glass to mirrors, and later on, frames and moldings. With this in mind, the first of the companies that would make them very famous was born, Vidrieras de Llodio (Villosa). In the family business, Isidoro was always a partner with his brother Alberto, Vallès, but it is no longer exclusively family-owned.

Isidoro Delclaux's interests also included public administration, and for a decade he served as a deputy on the Biscay Provincial Council (a position he took up following the fall of the capital during the Civil War, having previously served as its chief public works officer for the Port of Bilbao (1937–1968) and president of the local Chamber of Commerce (1964–1968). His work was frenetic, and he was involved in a multitude of projects, such as the construction of a toll motorway around Bilbao, the Petronor Muskiz refinery (Biscay), and the expansion of the trade fair. He was also a regular representative of the province as a representative in the Francoist Cortes from the post-war period until the end of the dictatorship

decades of the fifties and sixties, highlighting the need for profound industrial reconversion in the Basque Country. His great social profile led him to sit on countless boards of directors, including Tubos Reunidos, Banco de Vizcaya, Campsa, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, and the Comp. which caused a major conflict in the next generation of the family when the war broke out in Neguri for control of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, given that while his son continued the tradition, his nephew was linked to the Vizcaya Bank at that time. Incidentally, the young man with whom we began the story, Cosme Delclaux, had to spend 233 days in captivity before being able to see the light of day again. first installment of half of the total ransom demanded by the terrorists.