Almost all the analysis space is occupied by the noise of Spanish politics, a noise that has two fundamental emitters. The first is corruption close to the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez (Ábalos, Koldo, Cerdán), which adds a new indicted person:

The judge investigating the Leire Díez case at the Audiencia Nacional has added 25 new investigated individuals to the proceedings. In a brief order, which ARA has accessed, Santiago Pedraz has summoned – among others – the current president of SEPI, Belén Gualda, as an investigated person in the investigation relating to alleged irregularities in the awarding of public contracts. So far, Vicente Fernández – former president of SEPI –, Antxon Alonso – a businessman from Navarre close to Santos Cerdán – and Leire Díez had been indicted. The magistrate's decision comes at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which points to the crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling, embezzlement, prevarication, and insider trading. The Spanish government "maintains" its "confidence" in Gualda – SEPI, as the State's investment arm, is an agency that depends on the Ministry of Finance –, government sources indicate, defending that in the proceedings "no element appears that compromises the current president".

There is a Basque company that in recent hours has dominated the political news in Madrid: Tubos Reunidos, an Álava-based company founded in 1982 that manufactures seamless steel tubes. In the summer of 2021, within the framework of the coronavirus pandemic, it received a bailout from the Spanish government of 112.8 million euros from the same fund from which, for example, Air Europa or Plus Ultra benefited. A new report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, to which ARA has had access, states that the group comprising Leire Díez, Vicente Fernández – president of SEPI between 2018 and 2019 – and Antxon Alonso – a Basque businessman linked to Santos Cerdán – would have taken actions to "facilitate" the company receiving the bailout. And it includes an approach to the PNB that "could have contributed to bringing about the granting [of the aid]". For the management that the group carried out before and after the bailout, it would have received commissions worth 247,000 euros in various payments channeled through different routes.

Leire Díez has been under the scrutiny of the National High Court for days for allegedly orchestrating – and with the hand of Santos Cerdán – an structure to derail the judicial cases of Pedro Sánchez's circle. The investigation will take another step from next week with the declaration of lawyer Jacobo Teijelo as investigated and a battery of 24 witnesses who will begin to parade before Santiago Pedraz. According to the judge, what the so-called plumber of the PSOE did was to offer "remunerations or favors" in exchange for information or actions that would help to torpedo investigations uncomfortable for the socialists. Some of her interlocutors believed that what she was telling them was "fantastical," a "waste of time," or an "intrigue," even though Leire Díez boasted of having the capacity to maneuver in high instances to achieve her goals. Where did the tentacles she claimed to have reach?

"Never ever". And so on, and so on. The Director General of the Civil Guard, who appears splashed in the Leire Díez case summary, has flatly and unequivocally denied that she intervened in any way in maneuvers to "obstruct" judicial proceedings being investigated by the National Court. "I have never participated in any plot or conspiracy against the UCO, I have never participated in any smear campaign against the UCO, and I have never taken any measure against any UCO agent," Mercedes González proclaimed vehemently as soon as her appearance began before the Senate Interior Committee, convened by the PP's absolute majority. "I have never persecuted my own because they are my family," she added later. "I am not involved in any sewer," she even said. To defend herself, she boasted that there had been "no complaint" from UCO agents who felt threatened or coerced, and after two and a half hours, she concluded her statement with a proclamation: "Every day I have to tell myself that I have done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, the fury eager to achieve destruction and desolation will roar.

A new report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, to which ARA has had access, supports the alleged leadership role that Santos Cerdán would have exercised in the Leire Díez case. The National Court is investigating an alleged "criminal structure" to "obstruct" judicial proceedings and "protect the interests" of Pedro Sánchez. The 107-page document reinforces the existing evidence and, among other things, includes a report on the "management of travel expenses" related to Santos Cerdán and other members of his team in 2024 and 2025, which was prepared by the PSOE and handed over to the UCO three weeks ago. "He gave verbal instructions to his support staff to authorize any trip requested by Leire Díez in such a way that she personally communicated with the Secretariat staff to request trips," the report by Santiago Llorente, coordinator of the party's management, states.

In recent weeks, political news in Madrid has been marked by judicial investigations. The outbreak of the Leire case and the Zapatero case have shaken the PSOE and have once again placed Pedro Sánchez in a moment of maximum weakness. And there is a repeated name that appears linked to the so-called plumber of the PSOE and the investigation into the former president of the Spanish government: Nervis Gerardo Villalobos, who was Vice Minister of Energy in Venezuela with Hugo Chávez from 2004 to 2006.

The State Attorney General's Office, led since December by Teresa Peramato, has confirmed to the judge in the Leire Díez case that the so-called PSOE "plumber" met twice with the right-hand man of her predecessor, Álvaro García Ortiz, along with lawyer Jacobo Teijelo, who is currently part of Santos Cerdán's defense and is also under investigation by the National Court. The interlocutor was Diego Villafañe, who was the deputy prosecutor of the Attorney General's Technical Secretariat and who "later informed" the State Attorney General of the two meetings. The first meeting took place on March 6, 2025, and prosecutor Beatriz López Pesquera also participated. Prosecutorial sources explain that Jacobo Teijelo informed of "the existence of a series of facts presumably committed by third parties that could have criminal relevance." Subsequently, between late March and early April, a second meeting took place, in which Teijelo communicated his "intention to file several complaints with the Attorney General's Office related to those facts".

New revelations from the summary of the Leire Díaz case, the alleged plumber of the PSOE. In this case, about one of the bloodiest affairs of the dirty war against independence during the sovereignty process. The summary of the Leire Díez case includes the audio of a conversation with the former PSOE militant and former number two of minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez, where he admits that the report stating that the then mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias had a bank account in Switzerland "was all false" and that the former Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, was the one who leaked it to media outlets close to the PP. Martínez affirms that the person in charge of drafting the report "invented it all," and describes a system of creating and leaking dossiers against political rivals.

These days when the Mossos are watching the sewers, they will find them very full. Of recordings, for example, like that of a former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, who admits to the former PSOE fixer, Leire Díez, that the story of Xavier Trias's account in Andorra was false, invented by a policeman and leaked by the “number 1 leaker, you can imagine who it is. Jorge [Fernández Díaz], he was crazy about leaking [...] she did it talking to the pedrojotas”. They, who wanted to be like Bernstein and Woodward bringing down a president, were not, in reality, more than obedient printers of a minister's toxic merchandise. All for the homeland and for the publishing business, of course; nothing for the truth or for the rule of law. What must the very devout former minister have thought when he heard the Pope saying that “no one can kneel before God and despise his brother”?While Leo XIV was preparing these words, Pedro Sánchez (probably “PS” in the plumber's papers) escaped to Primavera Sound. When they can no longer bear the Madrid that wants to kill them, they take refuge in Catalonia and fill us with clichés: “A way to show the world a Barcelona and a Spain that are open, diverse, and full of energy. [...] Its international success speaks of a plural society that understands culture as a space for meeting, coexistence, and freedom”. It’s been years since we’ve been like this. And we would be even more so if we hadn't had to carry the dirty war and the premeditated disinterest of a useless state that can’t even run its trains on time, a drain of energies and resources, which from time to time uses the brush that Tarradellas spoke of.

"Antonio Balas: dangerous". This is one of the various annotations found in the agendas seized from Leire Díez, the main suspect in the latest judicial case affecting the PSOE. It refers to the head of the economic crime department of the Central Operative Unit (UCO), Antonio Balas. He is 52 years old and originally from a town in Badajoz, although this lieutenant colonel forged his career in the Basque Country during the ETA years. "If there is one thing I can say I am a bit of a specialist in, it is the field of criminal investigation," he defined himself in an event in November 2023, three years after taking charge of the UCO's economic crime department with the aim of ending corruption, which he himself defined as "a serious threat [...] to the rule of law and the welfare society".

When the impact of the indictment of former Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has not yet faded, the Leire case, which investigates an alleged plot to torpedo judicial cases affecting government members or those close to Pedro Sánchez, threatens to become a ticking time bomb against the PSOE. In the last few hours, we have seen how the summary has forced the socialists to qualify or directly rectify previous statements. Now, for example, it can no longer be claimed that Leire Díez was nobody in the PSOE, when we know that she met with Santos Cerdán 22 times; that she entered Ferraz normally; that she spoke with the party president, Cristina Narbona, and that she met up to three times with the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González.

The Tax Agency already has on the table a series of requests from the National Court to review the PSOE's accounts, but, on the other hand, it will not have to do so with those of the PSC. Judge Santiago Pedraz has finally excluded the Catalan socialists from the tax requirements, even though the Civil Guard insisted on including the PSC in the investigation. From the PSOE, and from the people implicated in the Leire case, the magistrate is looking for bank accounts, deposits, withdrawals or cash payments and invoices.

The Leire case has become a real ticking time bomb for the PSOE. The trickle of information about the investigation and the appearance of names being dragged through the mud has forced the socialists to step forward to distance themselves from what the judge believes was a "criminal structure" to "destabilize" judicial investigations. The mantra repeated in Ferraz is that the accused made "use of the PSOE's name in vain." Pedro Sánchez has finally spoken out, stating during an official visit to the Balkans that everything was done behind his back: "I was never informed about Leire Díez's adventures. I never endorsed and never had knowledge of something I would never have tolerated," he said from Montenegro. The Spanish president acknowledged that everything that has come to light fills him with "disappointment, concern, and indignation" and announced that the PSOE's legal team is studying "what actions will be taken" in "defense of the party's honorability and integrity."

The summary of the Leire Díez case, which is being investigated in the National Court, includes the recording of two meetings held by the so-called PSOE's plumber with Francisco Martínez, who was the number two to minister Jorge Fernández Díaz as Secretary of State for Security and who is currently sitting on the defendant's bench for the Kitchen case. On July 15, 2024, he himself told Leire Díez how Gonzalo Boye – Carles Puigdemont's lawyer – and Javier Pérez Dolset – who is also under investigation – had offered him to be included in the amnesty law. As can be heard in the recording to which ARA has had access, it was the businessman who contacted him to put on the table a "collaboration" under which, in return, he would have to "give explanations" and "recognize the authenticity" of some documents to the investigation commission on Operation Catalonia. He was surprised by it all: "It seems strange to me, I didn't see any possibility that I could be included in the amnesty in legal and political terms, but I thought I had nothing to lose by sitting down. And I sat down many times with the businessman Javier and the lawyer Gonzalo," he explained.

The director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, met with Leire Díez, the main suspect in the latest judicial case affecting the PSOE, even though until now both she and the Spanish government had denied it both in writing – in response to parliamentary questions from the PP – and orally: last week the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, reiterated it, stating that "the director of the Civil Guard has not had any meeting with anyone [...] Not with Leire nor with anyone else". This account changed this Thursday, once the summary of the case being investigated by the National High Court became known. In a statement this Thursday evening, the Civil Guard itself acknowledges at least two meetings —it does not rule out a third— and assures that González cut off the relationship as soon as Díez asked her to reinstate Commander Rubén Villalba, who was removed from the force for being involved in a judicial proceeding.

"A sum of individual behaviors by fake people, opportunists, and resentful individuals who have used the name of the PSOE in vain and falsely, much to the PSOE's regret." The phrase, written on X by the socialists' organization secretary, Rebeca Torró, summarizes the defense strategy the party has activated to distance itself from the plot that was operating from its headquarters on Ferraz street. The PSOE no longer denies that an organized group might have existed that was dedicated to trying to obtain information from investigations, police, judges, and prosecutors to pressure them. "The summary known today reveals a sum of intolerable behaviors by people who falsely and vainly used the name of the PSOE to benefit themselves or defend dark interests," published, also this Wednesday, the party's official account. What the socialist leadership fully rejects is that they were behind it, as, on the other hand, the investigating judge of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, does suspect. In fact, the intention of the group allegedly led by Santos Cerdán and Leire Díez was precisely to deactivate the judicial proceedings against the PSOE.

The same day that the judge authorized the Civil Guard to appear at the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, from Carrer Pallars in Barcelona, the PSC sent all the documentation related to its 2024 electoral campaign. Although the request was addressed to the PSOE, the Catalan socialists wanted to get ahead by emphasizing that everything was transparent and audited by the Court of Accounts. With this information, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the armed institute is not satisfied and has filed a claim for additional information with the National Court, which Judge Santiago Pedraz has accepted.

The supposed PSOE plot led by Santos Cerdán and Leire Díez also showed interest in the amnesty law. A 372-page Civil Guard report, which ARA has accessed, contains references to the law and the judicial persecution of independence supporters. Specifically, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) found a Word document prepared in November 2024 by the so-called PSOE plumber" who alluded directly to José Manuel Villarejo. It stated that the retired Spanish police commissioner, who these days is on trial for the Kitchen case, had the "proof that would demonstrate the corruption" of Manuel Marchena, who was the president of the trial of the Procés and was one of the judges who blocked the amnesty for Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Dolors Bassa, and Raül Romeva –Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig were also not granted amnesty by decision of Pablo Llarena–.

The 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.