The Civil Guard maintains that the PSOE 'plot' wanted to "protect the interests" of Pedro Sánchez

MadridThe Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard concludes that Santos Cerdán, Leire Díez, and other individuals formed a group to promote a “set of indicatively criminal actions” with the aim of “protecting the interests at stake in a series of judicial cases” affecting the PSOE and, “directly or indirectly,” Pedro Sánchez or “certain members” of the Spanish government. This is one of the elements contained in one of the reports to which ARA had access and which forms part of the summary of the case being investigated by the judge of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz.

The UCO considers that they intended to “destabilize” or “hinder” the judicial cases through “promises, offers, compensations, or influences over third parties in exchange for sensitive information or other actions.” And it believes that all this activity took place “with the support of the PSOE” because Santos Cerdán, former number three of the party, made “infrastructure and financial support available to the scheme to cover the actions and provide logistical support for the operations.” In an interview with Cuatro, Leire Díez defended herself: “I have not been ordered to do absolutely anything,” said the socialist militant regarding Cerdán.

In this regard, while the Spanish government asked for respect for the presumption of innocence, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, insisted on X that the Spanish government's “political defense” is “now impossible.” “Each revelation is more shameful than the last,” he added. Socialist sources have replied that these are “individual behaviors of impostors, opportunists, and resentful individuals who have used the PSOE's name in vain and falsely” and have defended their “honorability”.

The search at the PSOE headquarters

One of the most compromising images in recent days for Pedro Sánchez was the UCO's entry into the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz street last Wednesday. What was the Civil Guard looking for? According to the police report of the search, the agents took several diaries and a notebook belonging to Santos Cerdán with "handwritten notes" that they considered could be related to the investigated facts. They also took a laptop, external hard drives, and other documents that were in a basement of the socialist headquarters in Madrid, where up to "seven boxes of documentation and two containers with documentation that had been thrown away" by the former organization secretary were stored. In addition, in another search at the home of one of the investigated individuals, the former Andalusian vice-president Gaspar Zarrías, the UCO found 19,850 euros distributed in several bags.

One of the enigmas surrounding the alleged scheme is whether the Spanish president was aware of it. When he testified as a witness, Rubén Villalba – former Civil Guard commander and implicated in the Koldo case – explained that Leire Díez had assured him in a couple of meetings they had that she had access "to the top" and to the "one of the party" and "of the Spanish government." Another witness, a businessman, recalled that he asked Leire Díez if Sánchez was aware of her movements and that she replied "affirmatively." Finally, in a conversation on January 30, 2025, the then socialist militant spoke of a person she identified as "the presi," of whom she said that "he has it very clear." This last expression leads the Civil Guard to infer that Pedro Sánchez had "knowledge" of "the activity" that was being carried out.

"That we put ourselves in profile"

Besides Ferraz, last week the UCO even went to the general directorate of the Civil Guard to seek information and interrogate witnesses. It spoke, for example, with who was the head of the UCO in July 2024, a few months after the investigations into Begoña Gómez and David Sánchez began. The then deputy operational director of the Civil Guard, Manuel Llamas, held a meeting with the head of the UCO: "He indicated that in police proceedings that had political implications, we should not be proactive, with the instruction that 'we should step aside'," states the Civil Guard's report.

Previously, the general director of the Civil Guard, Leonardo Marcos, criticized that a report the Civil Guard had made about Pedro Sánchez's brother was "totally prospective and malicious" and regretted that the credibility of the UCO and the Civil Guard "was in tatters". The summary also reveals that Leire Díez had at least three meetings with the director of the corps, Mercedes González, and the UCO considers that the so-called PSOE plumber informed her of her actions.

The link with the PSC

The objects related to Santos Cerdán are not the only thing that interested the UCO. The Civil Guard also accessed corporate emails and other documentation. For example, and in relation to the case, the socialist management provided “in digital format, a copy of the monthly invoices issued by travel agencies” attributable to trips made by Cerdán himself, Leire Díez or Javier Pérez Dolset. The agents also requested information from the PSC, which the PSOE had to request from the Catalan socialists on the same day as the search, and which they sent by email. The PSC sent “four files in PDF format and one file in Word format, all relating to the documentation sent to the Court of Accounts of Catalonia” in relation to the electoral campaign for the Catalan elections of 2024.

The PP activates in the Senate

Given this appearance of the PSC in the summary, apparently related to the financing of its last regional election campaign, the PP has announced that it will once again summon the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to the Koldo case investigation commission. The Catalan socialists' leader is just one of the names cited by the popular spokesperson in the upper house, Alicia García, who also announced that they will call Leire Díez again and will also summon other members of what she has called the "sewer command," among whom she has placed Secretary of State Antonio Hernando and PSOE manager Ana María Fuentes, who is indicted in the case.