Why did the Windsor building burn down? El Sapo now says he started the fire 20 years ago
The investigation determined that the fire in the Madrid building was caused by a poorly extinguished cigarette
On February 13, 2005, Madrid woke up in shock: the Windsor building, an emblematic skyscraper of the city, had burned down completely. What had happened? How did the fire start? After a media-driven investigation, the official version determined that the flames had originated on the 21st floor due to a cigarette that had been poorly extinguished in a wastepaper basket. This version has been the subject of conspiracies over the years and now its days could be numbered. This Monday Jon Imanol Sapieha Candela, alias The Toad, one of the most famous thieves in Spain, claimed in an interview on Cuatro that he had started the Windsor fire.
"And now I will confess something else: I burned down the Windsor building," said Sapo in front of the cameras. The thief, as he explains, would have done it on demand. According to his story, Jon Imanol Sapieha would have received the order in a meeting on horseback in El Álamo, a town near Madrid. "Two people who meet on horseback do not arouse suspicion and cannot be heard," says the criminal. In that conversation he would have been asked to "collect some documents" at the Windsor and then "purify his land": "The objective was that these documents would never come to light and the easiest way to achieve this was by burning down the building."
El Sapo also revealed the amount he was paid to do the job. "I put about a million euros plus expenses. I always put expenses aside, because they can be very high," he explains. In his opinion, whoever made the order accepted it and paid him "in advance" and in "cash": "They gave me a backpack with a million euros in 500 euro notes." "I am a psychopath and with great honour," he says during the interview.
A skyscraper on fire and a mystery
The anniversary of the event can be followed on television. In fact, this Tuesday the DMAX channel will also premiere The Curse of Windsor (Producciones del Barrio), a four-episode documentary series that will attempt to delve deeper into the questions that continue to arise regarding the possible causes of the fire. DMAX's investigation will focus on clarifying whether or not a fire that started accidentally could have caused such a ferocious blaze in such a short time. In addition, it also promises to have investigated the Reyzábal family, the owner of the property and one of the most powerful families in Spain.
The Windsor fire: accident or sabotage?
Since the results of the investigation were explained, the official version of the poorly extinguished cigarette generated many detractors and doubts. One of the pieces of evidence that raised the most dust was a video where two people seemed to be seen walking on the 13th floor a few minutes before four in the morning, hours after the start of the flames. The scientific police, after investigating the tape, determined that the recording was correct and had not been manipulated. At that time, the building was closed and no victims were found.
In addition, in 2019 the media Moncloa.com had access to some texts where José Manuel Villarejo was behind the fire. The then commissioner would have wanted to destroy some documents that the Deloitte audit had that compromised the president of BBVA at the time, Francisco González. The 21st floor of the building, the point where according to the investigations the fire originated, was one of the many that made up the offices of the big four.