The PSOE manager holds Santos Cerdán responsible for the payments under suspicion in the Leire Díez case

MadridThe PSOE maintains unchanged the script it has established since the Leire Díez case broke out and continues to build a wall between Ferraz and the woman known as the socialist plumber. Now it has been the turn of Ana María Fuentes, the current party manager, who has testified at the National Court as under investigation for forgery of commercial documents. The Civil Guard and Judge Santiago Pedraz suspect that she falsified invoices and engagement letters to get money to Leire Díez and, in turn, conceal the payments. Sources present at the statement explain to ARA that Ana María Fuentes has shifted the blame onto Santos Cerdán, who at that time was the party's organization secretary and is also under investigation, alleging that he was the one who made the decisions and who ordered and gave the go-ahead to the engagement orders, invoices, and payments. She defended that she did what he told her, that she limited herself to paying and that she "did not control" expressly and specifically what the money was spent on.

Ana María Fuentes, who is the only person in the current PSOE who is charged in this case, has justified that the socialists hired two external lawyers –Ismael Oliver and Jacobo Teijelo– because there was a high volume of litigation. First the contract was "verbal" and then they put it in black and white in an engagement letter. Subsequently, socialist sources argue that the party "habitually hires" firms "specialized in different areas" and defend that the manager "is unaware of" the content of the jobs and "limited herself" to "reviewing contracts previously examined" by the legal department. Again, the same official voices reiterate that the manager "formalizes, documents and processes" the jobs commissioned by the organization secretariat –which was occupied by Santos Cerdán– and orders them to be paid following his instructions. They are "ordinary expenses" that "are not the responsibility" of either Pedro Sánchez or the party leadership.

Before the judge, in a statement lasting less than two hours in which she answered all parties – including the PP, which leads the popular accusations – and admitted that she was nervous, the PSOE manager – according to the same legal sources explaining to this newspaper – also stated that she had no dealings with Leire Díez: she knew nothing about her, they did not meet, she did not see her at Ferraz, and she had no record that there were meetings with her. Regarding the purchase of train and plane tickets for the then-PSOE militant, she pointed to the two employees who handled the arrangements, which – she said – did not go through her. The judge archived the case against them, arguing that they limited themselves to “executing the orders” they received from Santos Cerdán and that there is no record that they “knew” they were carrying out an “illicit plan”.

Koldo's former lawyer and Operation Catalonia

Another person who has testified is Ismael Oliver, who was Koldo García's lawyer from February to June 2025. Sources present at the statement indicate to ARA that he explained he was hired by Leire Díez, who said she was acting on behalf of the PSOE, to analyze and review the appearances at the Congressional commission of inquiry into Operation Catalonia from September 2024 to early 2025. He alleged that Santos Cerdán was interested in what might be explained there because it had political significance. However, after his contractual relationship with Ferraz ended and when he was already the lawyer for José Luis Ábalos's former advisor, he continued to be in recurring contact with Leire Díez.

The Civil Guard, for example, found a message from March 2025 in which he told Leire Díez that it was necessary to go against Alejandro Luzón, the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. He has now admitted that it was an “unfortunate expression.” The fixer for the PSOE, who—according to him—often went to see him at his office, insinuated that the PSOE would pay for Koldo García's defense, but he never charged for the five months he defended him.

Ismael Oliver is also under suspicion because the same amount he collected from the PSOE was channeled to Leire Díez, who collected 27,225 euros. To justify it being exactly the same figure, he said that Nervis Villalobos—the former Venezuelan minister for whom he is the lawyer—hired Leire Díez to erase his digital footprint, but his accounts were blocked and he could not pay her. And it was Ismael Oliver who took charge of it: she initially asked for much more money, but since they could not reach an agreement, they agreed that it would be the amount he had received from Ferraz.

The thesis of the Civil Guard and the judge

The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard believes that Ana María Fuentes, with the “intermediation” of Leire Díez, “falsified” two engagement letters to the office of Ismael Oliver and to Jacobo Teijelo, who is a lawyer for Santos Cerdán. It considers that they were signed in a “merely instrumental” manner to “simulate” a professional relationship and “serve as a means” for the PSOE to be able to “finance the allegedly criminal activity”. Judge Santiago Pedraz pointed to Ana María Fuentes for a “concrete and auxiliary intervention” that places her in a position of “co-authorship or complicity” regarding payments that served to “remunerate” the maneuvers that Leire Díez was allegedly instigating to “protect” the socialists and Pedro Sánchez.