Boye alleges a plot between the police and an alleged murderer to incriminate him in a drug trafficking case

MadridCarles Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has defended his innocence this Monday in the trial in which he is accused of alleged money laundering and document falsification linked to drug trafficking. The prosecution is asking for 9 years and 9 months in prison for him for allegedly being part of a network led by the Galician José Ramón Prado Bugallo, better known as Sito Miñanco, which would import drugs to Spain from Latin America. "Every time I prove something, they change it for another," Boye complained at the end of the interrogation, in which he only answered the questions of his defense.

The lawyer was referring to a statement by Manuel Puentes Saavedra, another defendant and the only one who links Boye to this operation. In his statement last Thursday, he indicated for the first time that he had participated in a meeting at the lawyer's office on February 22, 2017, something that Boye has categorically denied. In fact, he assured that he did not have any meeting with Puentes Saavedra. Boye's defense strategy consists of stating that this is the only person who supports the prosecution's indictment, given that none of the other 45 people involved in the trial recognize the facts. In this sense, Puigdemont's lawyer emphasizes that Puentes Saavedra indicted him in July 2019 - after not having done so in a previous statement - while he was imprisoned following an agreement with the police. "He tells me that he has received visits, that there is desperation and offers," Boye said, recalling a conversation with Puentes Saavedra's then lawyer, Jesús Prieto, who went to see him in prison. Supposedly, he was offered not to be extradited to Colombia for answering for a murder in exchange for lifting the lid on this drug trafficking case. It was not until January 2023 that Boye met Prieto again at the National Court and recorded the conversation on his mobile phone: "He defines who made the visits, the police and that they offer him freedom in exchange for testifying against me," he said.

The origin of the money

The case was initiated by the seizure of 890,000 euros in cash from businessman Manuel González Rubio at Barajas airport on February 6, 2017. The public prosecutor suspects that it is part of drug trafficking, while the version of the accused is that it was money that González Rubio was supposed to take to González Rubio. Boye has argued that this man sought advice from his office to try to recover the money from Sepblac and the Prosecutor's Office accuses him of having fabricated documentation that accredited a supposed legal origin of the money. When questioned by his lawyer, he explained that he did not participate directly in the papers that were provided to Sepblac accrediting a purchase and sale of bills of exchange. The money laundering prevention agency rejected the documentation because it saw duplications and Boye has explained that he contacted the people who had signed these contracts with González Rubio to clarify the situation. "They told me it was impossible, that they had been made in 2016 and were unique," he said.

Puigdemont's lawyer has also denied having met in 2017 and in the following months with other defendants, including Miñanco himself, who had been Boye's client in previous proceedings. drug dealer Galician declared on Tuesday of last week and defended that he was "totally innocent" and attributed the accusation to the "imagination" of the prosecutor. "He says 314 times that I trafficked drugs, but he does not locate the sale of a single gram," he said. Miñanco said that in 2016 he was finishing serving prison sentences in open regime and that he lived in Algeciras, where he worked in a parking company and was also dedicated to selling encrypted mobile phones.

The search in the office

Another leg of Boye's defense strategy is to report an illegal search of his professional office because, among other issues, a file was intercepted. pendrive with documents on his defense strategy in that trial.