Anti-corruption opens an investigation into Vox for irregular financing

BarcelonaThe Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation against Vox for alleged irregular financing, according to reports The Independent and sources from the public ministry have confirmed to ARA. The decision comes after the PSOE filed a complaint against the far-right party in December for the alleged collection of funds in an opaque manner. The chief prosecutor of Anticorruption, Alejandro Luzón, believes that there is a basis to investigate the ultras, who have already been sanctioned in the past by the Court of Auditors. The proceedings are secret.

In their complaint three months ago, the socialists addressed the Attorney General's Office after having made an "exhaustive analysis" of the financing of the party led by Santiago Abascal and reaching the conclusion that it could be committing a crime of illegal party financing. The socialists put the emphasis on the "piggy banks or safes"that Vox uses to raise funds on the information boards it deploys throughout the state territory, "along with a whole series of offers of merchandising elements" that would be paid for in cash. The party would have used these means of financing "at least since 2020 and until now", according to the complaint, and would have reached up to 5 million euros.

Vox has reacted to the opening of the investigation by claiming the legality of its financing and presenting itself as a victim of "persecution" by the PSOE and the PP. The national spokesperson for the party, José Antonio Fúster, stated that its accounts are "clear and transparent" and denied that the sale of merchandising in information tents constitutes a breach of the law. "It is easy to explain, we have merchandising that was given away and there were people who, in exchange, wanted to collaborate with the financing of the party, something as simple as this is irregular financing for the PSOE, it is absurd because it is allowed," said the spokesman, supporting this practice in article 2 of the law on party financing, which.

The socialists based their conclusions on "numerous news items" in the media, but claimed to have studied the annual accounts that Abascal's publish on their website to contrast the published information. "Thereceiving donations"The use of anonymous donations in piggy banks and the carrying out of promotional sales when they are not actually justified with minimal accounting, receipts, etc. would contravene the provisions of the regulations, which prohibit anonymous donations because they may conceal illegal sources of financing," the PSOE added in the complaint.

A loan linked to Orbán

The complaint filed with the Public Prosecutor's Office also included a loan of 6.5 million granted by MBH Bank Nyrt, a Hungarian bank whose main shareholder is a state fund "linked" to the country's Prime Minister, the ultra-right Viktor Orbán, and which "Vox would have tried to hide in its accounting." "It would once again infringe the financing regulations, which prohibit the financing of political parties by governments and foreign bodies, entities or public companies or by companies directly or indirectly related to them," the complaint stressed. Abascal's party has acknowledged having received money from this bank with the argument that Spanish entities "do not want to finance it."

Aside from the ongoing investigation, last summer the Court of Auditors already sanctioned Vox for its financing, and specifically for having received donations of a specific nature, prohibited by law. The auditing body imposed on the party Two fines worth 233,324 euros: one of them, for the money received in a campaign to file a complaint against the former president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra; the other, for the funds raised to pay the bail of a man who was facing prison for having killed a thief. In addition, in its 2018 and 2019 reports, the Court of Auditors indicated that the far-right party had received More than 300,000 euros from anonymous citizens through ATMs.