This is how the clandestine operation to bring Puigdemont to and from Catalonia was planned.

BarcelonaA man waits impatiently on a street in Barcelona's Sant Pere neighborhood. It's August 6, 2024, and streams of tourists are passing by. It's already dark, he's restless, and suspicious of everyone. He pays particular attention to those who are doing nothing, who are simply waiting. Are they following him? He's waiting alone for a car, he doesn't know the make or the driver, only who will be in the back seat. 190 kilometers away, near Perpignan, the closest friends of former president Carles Puigdemont are beginning to arrive at the house where they have been summoned. It's a special meeting. Gonzalo Boye is there, much more so than his lawyer, and also Jami Matamala. They are there to have his last dinner with Puigdemont, as there is a feeling that it will be the last meeting with the former president after he is free. At the appointed time, the car that the Junts leader normally drives arrives, but there is no sign of him. Only his phone. The diners are astonished; they dine and leave: they had no idea they were part of a diversionary maneuver.

At this moment, in Barcelona, ​​​​the hour-long wait for the impatient man on a street in the Sant Pere neighborhood is over. A car driven by an elderly couple of volunteers arrives. They are coming from Northern Catalonia and have entered the Principality by road. In the back seats are Carles Puigdemont and the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull, completely cut off from communication for hours. It is the first time the former president has set foot in Barcelona since 2017. It has been seven years of exile, but he silently gets out of the car and immediately enters an apartment where he will lock himself away for two consecutive days.

This is the first step in what will be Puigdemont's fleeting return, and he will only be seen in public for a few minutes on August 8. The operation will catch everyone off guard: the Mossos d'Esquadra (Spanish police), the Civil Guard, and the National Police, but also Junts (Junts) and the rest of the pro-independence parties and organizations, who had prepared for his imprisonment. Òmnium had a website ready to denounce the situation and mobilize resources, which it never actually activated. In fact, the move will even take the Speaker of the Parliament, Josep Rull, the president of the group, Albert Batet, and the entire leadership of the Junta by surprise. Former presidents Artur Mas and Quim Torra also appear. Only three people close to the former president know what will happen: Turull, who has registered as a lawyer with powers of representation for the former president and who must not leave his side for even a moment, and Toni Castellà, who, from the Council of the Republic (CdR), devised the entire operation with his right-hand man, Teresa Vallverda, a member of the executive branch.

Puigdemont's possible escape, if he can't enter the Catalan parliament as promised, is verbalized in a meeting a few days before D-Day, at the end of July. It's not at a meeting of the Junts or Consell leadership, but at one of those summits where the former president convenes his closest confidants, from both inside and outside the party. The participants in that meeting can be counted on the fingers of two hands, and among them are Turull and Castellà. It's here that a voice with influence from within the meeting raises a scenario that hadn't been considered until then: if Puigdemont can't enter the plenary session due to police presence, can he leave the country again? It seems impossible, but the last thing the former president wants is to allow himself to be arrested after seven years of exile.

Operation Ballot Box

If in August 2017, dozens of volunteers crossed the border to carry ballot boxes for the 1-O referendum in a clandestine operation that made the referendum possible, now, seven years later and one month of August, another secret operation was underway, which was equally complicated. Puigdemont had to be transported to and from Catalonia on the day Salvador Illa was inaugurated. Under the premise that he could not be arrested, around 100 people were involved in an operation that also included people who played a key role in the distribution of ballot boxes across the Principality. And as in 2017, this network of volunteers operates in a pyramid-like fashion, with each person involved simply carrying out the task assigned to them without asking questions. Some tasks are seemingly simple, and others are not so simple, but the person carrying them out doesn't know the underlying reason. No one on the operation has all the information or knows how the story will end, only Castellà and Vallverdú.

The apartment on a street in Sant Pere, in fact, belongs to a volunteer. On August 6 and 7, the hours pass slowly. The blinds are always down, and they don't carry cell phones. Puigdemont reads a thick book. He finishes it and starts another. Turull feels ill and needs medication. The conversation revolves around anecdotes and famous quotes, from Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State during the Vietnam War, to Israel and Palestine. But they also discuss strategy: an event will be held at the Arc de Triomf early on the 8th, organized by the Council of the Republic, and Puigdemont will make a brief speech. The ideal scenario is that he will be able to enter the Parliament, but more likely, given the deployment of Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), he won't even be allowed to enter the Ciutadella. That's why an operation is being designed to make him disappear into the crowd.

The white Honda

There will be a white car in the Arc de Triomf underground parking lot, the exit of which is next to the Consell stage. It's a Honda and was parked there the day before, on August 7th. There's also another apartment on the border between Poblenou and Vila Olímpica, owned by another volunteer, which will be where Puigdemont will go after his appearance at Arc de Triomf. The driver of the vehicle, who has a disability, is spoken to and given only one guideline: whichever route she chooses to get to Poblenou, it should be in the direction of the Catalan parliament. First, to have visual contact with the entrance to Ciutadella Park and verify that there's a police barrier and Puigdemont can't enter; and second, because it's the perfect diversion, despite the risk: no Mossos d'Esquadra will think he's returning to Waterloo if he's heading toward Parliament. "It went well for us, but the police underestimated us," notes one of those involved in the entire operation.

Three meetings

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Police) leadership is meeting a few days before the investiture and arrest. They are also analyzing how to provide security for the two planned demonstrations (the one welcoming the former president and the one for the far right) while also ensuring Isla's investiture plenary session. The meeting on August 7 is the last operational meeting of the three currently being held. The Mossos d'Esquadra have primarily considered two scenarios: that Puigdemont returns to Catalonia days before the investiture to try to gain access to the Parliament, or that he attempts to do so on the day of the plenary session. The possibility of the former president returning and leaving again is not included in any analysis. Negligence? It is a delicate and uncomfortable mission for the Catalan police, as several officers consulted confirm. There is an outstanding arrest warrant, but they also have a duty to maintain proportionality: they are dealing with a member of parliament, a former president, and someone who is only accused of embezzlement. So, they decide to wait for him at the entrance to Parliament to arrest him there, without trying to intercept him first. They trust he'll arrive because that's what he's said publicly. Is there some kind of agreement with Puigdemont's entourage to assume this will be the case? No. There was only one attempt by the police to reach an agreement, but it didn't work out.

The Boye-Mossos contact

To understand this, we must go back to March 28, 2023. Former minister Clara Ponsatí unexpectedly appeared at the Barcelona Association of Journalists after almost six years of exile. With an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court, the General Information Commissariat of the Mossos d'Esquadra improvised an operation to arrest her, which took place in the Plaza de la Catedral. They took her to the City of Justice, and there a key conversation took place. The head of Information for the Mossos d'Esquadra, Superintendent Carles Hernández, spoke with Gonzalo Boye, Ponsatí's lawyer, but also Puigdemont's. The police commander considered the operation with the former minister to have gone well, that it had been clean, and, already considering Puigdemont's possible return, he invited him to speak later.

The conversation takes place in June 2024. Hernández contacts Boye at a time when it's already clear that the Supreme Court is rejecting the application of the amnesty to the former president, and he maintains his commitment to return. Is there a possibility of agreeing to an arrest? The lawyer's response is that he must discuss it with his client. And it turns out there isn't: there will be no agreed exit or further contact. And so August 8th arrives, the scheduled day for Isla's investiture. The planned scenario is that Puigdemont will be arrested and that the plenary session will be suspended, out of respect for the former president, for at least a few days. This is taken for granted by the government and Parliament, as well as by the leadership of Junts. In fact, some are ready to end the day in Madrid, which is where the Mossos d'Esquadra plan to take Puigdemont once he has been arrested at the doors of the Parliament.

The magicians and the straw hat

It's August 8, 2024, and just a few minutes before 9:00 a.m., the time at which the reception ceremony for Puigdemont, convened by the Council of the Republic at the Arc de Triomf, in collaboration with Òmnium and the ANC, is scheduled to begin. Puigdemont leaves the apartment in the Sant Pere neighborhood flanked by Jordi Turull and only two other people to guarantee his safety. It's only 100 meters of silence and tension until he reaches the corner of Passage de Sant Benet and Trafalgar Street.

There are 40 Mossos d'Esquadra intelligence officers in the area (and up to 600 from the entire police force deployed in the surrounding area), but none of them see fit to arrest him because the shouts of "president" immediately begin, the cameras gather, and the shoving begins. The Junts deputies, who had been waiting for him on Trafalgar Street since 8:30 a.m. at the request of Batet, surround him until he enters the security perimeter—an iron fence covered with a black tarp surrounding the platform. The moment is complex: Puigdemont has to run the last few meters, Batet falls to the ground and tears his jacket, and Turull's face reflects the pain he has endured these past few days locked in the Sant Pere apartment. "We are still here (...). I don't know when we will see each other again, but whatever happens, when we see each other again, may we be able to call it a free Catalonia," proclaims a visibly nervous Puigdemont on stage.

Often, magicians insistently show you one hand to get you to focus their full attention when, in reality, they're performing the real trick with the other. Puigdemont's distraction is the crowd, the cameras, and everyone's belief in the planned script. The Consell volunteers are instructed to push the crowd down Passeig Lluís Companys and open a passageway for the entire institutional procession, led by Rull, to ascend toward the Ciutadella. "We will now accompany the Honorable President to the Parliament. To do so, follow the instructions of our volunteers," is heard over the PA system. The TV3 camera follows the flow of people, as does the Mossos dron. Even an officer outside the TSJC (High Court of Justice) announces on the internal line that he's seeing Puigdemont descending on foot. "Sometimes people just want to see what they want to see," summarizes one person involved in the operation. At the Mossos d'Esquadra Coordination Center at the Sant Martí police station, all the police commanders are curiously approaching the big screen used to monitor what's happening at Arc de Triomf. They strain to see Puigdemont, like someone looking for Wally, but he's not there.

At that precise moment there is only one police officer who has located him. He runs after the white Honda that has left the Arc de Triomf parking lot. and which includes the former president and Turull. The diversionary tactic, in this case, has worked almost perfectly and has relied on two seemingly harmless elements: a tent and the straw hats carried by the organization's volunteers, strategically placed. Two days before the investiture, the leadership of the Council of the Republic called on regional officials to seek out people they trust the most. "We warned those we knew well, the most committed ones, that we knew they wouldn't fail; they weren't just registered members of the Consell," one leader consulted clarifies.

Just before the event begins, this group of people is given precise instructions: they must position themselves under the stage, next to the tent, and just a few meters above the parking lot exit. They don't know that Puigdemont will slip away through there, but they do have orders to keep that space free of anyone outside the organization. "No one would have gotten in without a hat," comments a person involved in the operation. At the same time, the ANC sent a circular to its members the day before encouraging members to wear a cap, which Turull would also put on at the right moment.

Just as the speech ended, and while the entire political entourage was already beginning to walk down Passeig Lluís Companys, Puigdemont and the secretary general of Junts entered the tent to the right of the stage and headed in the opposite direction to the crowd. A volunteer broke the cable ties on the fences so they could get out and get into the white Honda, which was stopped, making a Dutch tourist in a Volkswagen wait. The vehicle, equipped with a teletaco so it wouldn't have to wait at the ATM, went up Avenida Vilanova, went down Nápoles, turned onto Buenaventura Muñoz, and turned onto Cerdeña.

A police error

The intelligence officer runs after the car for two kilometers without stopping. He's over six feet tall and is positioned on top of street furniture, so he's been able to see Puigdemont's movement inside the compound over the fence. He tries to report over the police radio that the former president is in the white car, but there's no room to get in. While running, he calls his superior and informs him. He makes a mistake: he says it's a Peugeot when it's a Honda, and he doesn't get all the license plate numbers right either.

He loses visibility of the car at the intersection of Trias Fargas and Paseo de la Circunvalación. The Interior Ministry receives a call from the National Police: "We hope the white car is yours," comments a senior Spanish police official. The response is negative. There is astonishment, and also indignation, at the police coordination center. A few minutes later, a Guardia Urbana camera in the Rovira Tunnel detects the vehicle. Puigdemont is no longer there: he is in an apartment located between the Olympic Village and Poblenou, while the driver of the car, who is in a wheelchair and has tinted rear windows, continues to drive around the city with no specific destination. At noon, she arrives for lunch with her family.

The entrance of the mammoth

Meanwhile, no senior Junts leader—with the exception of Castellano, Vallverdú, and Turull, who is with Puigdemont—knows what's going on. Albert Batet leads the deputies, along with Josep Rull, to the entrance of Parliament where Mamut is, as the Interior Ministry had instructed him the day before to avoid encountering the Vox demonstration at the entrance to the Estació de France. They don't know where Puigdemont is, but they believe he will eventually arrive at the Parliament. The situation becomes tense with the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), and Batet approaches the head of the force, Eduard Sallent, who has approached because he assumes he will intercept the former president there. "We haven't been treated as we should as deputies," Batet snaps. "Well, those aren't the orders I gave them," Sallent replies. Was it the head of the Mossos d'Esquadra who was going to arrest Puigdemont? This option was considered, but it was ultimately decided that it would be an intelligence officer. There are several displays posted near the various entrances to Ciutadella Park. They pass the time by eating peanuts.

The parliamentarians are entering the Catalan chamber—Junts members are calling it "Long Live Catalonia, Free Lives"—while Salvador Illa is heading into one of the shortest speeches ever given by an investiture candidate—probably because he assumed the plenary session would be suspended that day. Batet, who ends up speaking on behalf of Junts in the chamber, has nothing prepared either. He improvises as he goes along and is only asked one thing by the person acting as liaison with Puigdemont, who is incommunicado: to say that they hope the Junts leader can exercise his rights during the day. The operation to escape requires time and, above all, to sow confusion. Among the ranks of the Junts members, someone is even genuinely spreading the word that sooner or later Puigdemont will appear at the lectern.

Two floors and the whole trip by car

A short time passes between the moment the intelligence agent loses sight of the white Honda and the Mossos d'Esquadra make a difficult decision. Eduard Sallent activates Operation Jaula (Cage Operation) to block access to Barcelona and also border crossings. According to knowledgeable sources, it is a decision motivated by two main reasons: first, feeling deceived. The Interior Ministry points out that those close to Junts had told them there would be no twists in the script. And it was also a decision motivated by the fear of not doing enough. That is, the judiciary (as it turned out later) criticized the Mossos d'Esquadra for not doing everything within their power to arrest Puigdemont.

During the afternoon, the Catalan police received calls from Llarena himself. The cage lasted two hours, and border controls continued all day. The Mossos d'Esquadra's main hypothesis is that Puigdemont never intended to enter the Ciutadella through the Mammut Gate, but rather wanted to sneak in through a zoo merchandise gate. In fact, they add that just as the white Honda passed this point at the intersection with Paseo de la Circunvalación, the police noticed that one of the zoo gates leading to the Parliament was open. However, there were controls at all entrances, and they believe this prevented Puigdemont from attempting it. A police hypothesis that, in any case, was categorically denied by the former president's entourage: "This access was not among the scenarios."

Puigdemont is in the apartment in Poblenou-Villa Olímpica and, at some point during the day, he will still be moving to another address in Barcelona. There was still a third one that ultimately remains unused. Around eight o'clock in the evening, the road to the border climbs along the Maresme motorway, and despite the police checkpoints, there are no uniformed officers to hinder his path, despite the curves along the route. He makes all his trips by car, but no longer in the white Honda, the only one the police have tracked. During the day, the Mossos d'Esquadra follow people close to Puigdemont in case they can detect him, without success. "The president is now in safekeeping," is sent almost at midnight on August 8. The former president conveys this in person to both the leader of Òmnium, Xavier Antich, and to Lluís Llach, president of the ANC, who is in charge of making it public.

The emotional breakdown

Interior Minister Joan Ignasi Elena is watching Puigdemont's escape from the Parliament, constantly keeping an eye on his phone. He's angry, like virtually the entire leadership of the department. He can't find answers among the Junts deputies. "Where is he hiding him?" a former president asks in the corridors. The Mossos d'Esquadra and the Interior Ministry maintain that they had prepared an honest, proportional operation to carry out a dignified arrest, and that the response had been a hoax. This resentment is evident the following day at a press conference, where Sallent accuses Puigdemont of performing a "Jimmy Jump." During the appearance, Interior officials (also speaking is the police director, Pere Ferrer) are receiving—and reviewing—messages, some disapproving and others encouraging, even from Junts members who don't understand what the former president has done.

Puigdemont's escape after his return from exile is a point of no return between the leadership of the Mossos d'Esquadra and Junts. It's an emotional rupture between the party that inherited Convergència, which promoted them, and leaders who didn't expect what happened. Especially on the part of Sallent, who has never been a stranger to this ideological space. Not surprisingly, on the day of Isla's inauguration, Saturday at the Palau de la Generalitat, Jordi Pujol had a brief conversation with the then head of the Mossos d'Esquadra. A kind of "consolation for the grief" that the former president has also replicated with Pere Ferrer, also a native of this space.

The failure of the Mossos on August 8th has put them at the mercy of the horses, not only because were exposed in front of everyone, but because at this point there is still an open case by Vox and Hazte Oír—awaiting the decision of the Barcelona Court—against the entire former Interior Ministry leadership. But those who have the worst prospects, and without any benevolence from the force's leadership, are the three Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) indicted for helping Puigdemont escape: vilified within the police force and under threat of criminal conviction. There is no doubt that they are outside the amnesty law, which only covers them until November 23, 2023. And Puigdemont's effective return remains in the hands of the Supreme Court. However, those involved in the operation—and Puigdemont himself—are proud of the success of the operation: "The independence movement needed a victory after so many setbacks, and it was achieved on the same day it lost the Generalitat," concludes one of those involved.