The Anti-Corruption Office has opened 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 prosecutor's office have confirmed to ARA. The decision comes after the PSOE filed a complaint against the far-right party in December for alleged opaque fundraising. The chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Office, Alejandro Luzón, believes there is grounds to investigate the extremists, who have already been sanctioned in the past by the Court of AuditorsThe proceedings are secret.

In their complaint from three months ago, the Socialists addressed the State Attorney General's Office after conducting an "exhaustive analysis" of the financing of the party led by Santiago Abascal and concluding that it could be committing the crime of illegal party financing. The Socialists emphasized the "piggy banks or safes." that Vox uses to raise funds on the information boards it displays throughout Spain, "along with a whole series of merchandise items" that would be paid for in cash. The party has allegedly used these funding channels "at least since 2020 and until now," according to the complaint, and has reportedly reached up to 5 million euros.

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

The Socialists based their conclusions on "numerous news items" in the media, but claimed to have studied the annual accounts that Abascal's party publishes on its website to contrast the information published. "Thereception of donationsAnonymous donations in piggy banks and promotional sales that cannot be justified with even minimal accounting, receipts, etc., would contravene the regulations, which prohibit anonymous donations because they can conceal illicit financing sources," the PSOE added in the complaint.

A loan linked to Orbán

The document filed with the Prosecutor's Office also included a 6.5 million loan granted by MBH Bank Nyrt, a Hungarian bank whose main shareholder is a state fund "linked" to the country's prime minister, the far-right Viktor Orbán, and which "Vox allegedly attempted to hide in its accounting records." "It would once again violate financing regulations, which prohibit the financing of political parties by foreign governments and organizations, entities, or public companies, or by companies directly or indirectly related to them," the complaint stated. Abascal's party has acknowledged receiving money from this bank, arguing that Spanish entities "do not want to finance it."

Aside from the ongoing investigation, last summer the Court of Auditors sanctioned Vox for its funding, specifically for receiving donations for specific purposes, which are prohibited by law. The oversight body imposed a fine 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 facing prison for having killed a thief. Separately, 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.