There was also capital flight under Franco.

For decades, Spain's ruling classes preferred an incompetent and inexpensive state to the opposite. This was primarily because efficiency equated to a tax system with a direct and proportional impact on the highest incomes. Evading taxes was once—and, unfortunately, it seems this selfish refrain is making a comeback—justified and even encouraged by certain rhetoric. Furthermore, the skittish nature of money was accentuated by any of the contemporary political uncertainties. Whether it was the proclamation of the Second Republic, the outbreak of the Civil War, the hesitant initial steps of the Transition, or a potential unilateral declaration of independence, the wealthy were always the first to flee to the nearest tax haven.

Nor did the supposedly patriotic Franco regime escape this dynamic. On the contrary, the suicidal and ideological autarky imposed during the long postwar period increased the volume of capital flight abroad to evade tax authorities, to obtain foreign currency—both essential and heavily controlled by the dictatorship—or to secure assets (and by assets, I mean savings) abroad. Faced with this growing demand for opaque and confidential services, an equivalent supply quickly emerged, initially centered in the free (and libertine) city of Tangier and later in Switzerland, a country dedicated to banking secrecy. Still far removed from today's digital and interconnected world, this required travel that was not always feasible for Spanish depositors. Therefore, sought-after representatives began to travel regularly and consistently to provide accounts, conduct transactions, and exchange information with their lucrative local clientele.

The end of discretion

To almost everyone's surprise, this discretion was shattered on Sunday, November 30, 1958, when agents from the Barcelona Criminal Investigation Brigade arrested the Swiss national George Laurent Rivara outside his Barcelona hotel, en route to Madrid and the Basque Country. These two regions, along with the Catalan capital, accounted for the majority of his clients, or rather, the clients of the Société de Banque Suisse. This event unleashed a series of unprecedented internal and external consequences, which Enrique Faes (Gijón, 1975) reconstructs in a meticulously researched history book that doesn't shy away from a detective-like approach to the specific case and a characterization capable of defining an era. Author of the previous work, and highly recommended. Demetrio Carceller (1894-1968). A businessman in the Government (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2020), the Asturian historian enriches our understanding of the economic dimension of the dictatorship.

The Rivara case quickly garnered international attention as a symptom of the regime's corruption in the American press, and aroused apprehension among Swiss authorities who saw their sacred banking secrecy threatened. However, the most significant internal repercussions were the unexpected events of March 9, 1959, when... BOE He published the names of the 872 people involved, along with the fines initially handed down by the Monetary Crimes judge (some of which would later be reduced or revoked) and the assets deposited abroad. The scandal no longer distinguished between gradations—among those implicated were foreign nationals not subject to punishment—and, as Faes recounts, it revealed the internal power struggles within the regime, showed how the State, including the police, was incorporating talent and resources, and also illustrated the acceleration of legislative changes. However, the question remains: how many more Rivaras were there? How many more are there today?