The key witness in the third session of the trial against José Luis Ábalos was Carmen Pano. And her statement followed the script: as she said at the Audiencia Nacional, during the investigation at the Supreme Court and at the Senate's investigation committee, she reiterated and to the Senate's investigation committee, But there was a second delivery that raises more doubts. Carmen Pano first said that the "operation" was that Claudio Rivas made transfers to her accounts and she withdrew the money in cash. And it wasn't until half an hour later that she admitted that in the second case she didn't directly withdraw the money from the bank, but rather a certain Lolo, a "worker or friend" of Claudio Rivas, brought it to her home. She didn't get to count it, but – in theory – there were also 45,000 euros. She took it back to Aldama's office, but later he called her "quite angry" and told her that 10,000 euros were missing. "Therefore, I deduce that there were 35,000 euros," the businesswoman acknowledged. This is a point that only came to light at the end of her statement, after spending a long time equating the two deliveries and without having mentioned this unforeseen event.

“An agreement that had as its object the future commission of crimes as opportunities to commit them arose”. After a year and a half of investigation, 30 years in prison. On the table will be nine crimes, including membership in a criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, and embezzlement.

Pedro Sánchez's government is increasingly dependent on the courts. Anxiety is spreading among the Socialist ranks, especially after a week that has brought two new developments: five arrests These events have brought to light two new cases—which remain secret—and a Civil Guard report that once again implicates José Luis Ábalos. These are ongoing investigations into issues that strike at the heart of the Spanish president's political roadmap and the origins of his rise to power. Of the five arrested, the National Court has released former Socialist Party member Leire Díez, Vicente Fernández Guerrero, former president of SEPI (State Holding Company for Industrial Participations), and Basque businessman Antxon Alonso, owner of the company Servinabar and a friend of Santos Cerdán, former PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) organizational secretary. All five were released with precautionary measures (passport confiscation and periodic court appearances) after the prosecution did not request their imprisonment.

The Supreme Court is demanding a €60,000 bail from former minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García. both in pretrial detention for the past two weeks, and sends them to trial along with businessman Víctor de Aldama for organized crime. This was ordered in a ruling this Thursday by Judge Leopoldo Puente, who is investigating the case of alleged irregular commissions in the purchase of face masks during the pandemic. The judge, according to the ruling, has agreed to open oral proceedings against the three defendants for the crimes of membership in a criminal organization, continuous bribery, use and exploitation of privileged information, influence peddling, embezzlement, falsification of documents, and abuse of power. This comes after the appeals court rejected Ábalos and Koldo's appeals this Wednesday and upheld their indictment. In parallel with the opening of the oral proceedings, the investigating judge ordered that Ábalos and Koldo remain in prison and demanded that they pay 60,000 euros to "guarantee any financial liabilities that may ultimately be imposed on them." If this amount is not provided within five business days, the Judge orders the seizure of assets equivalent to the bail. In Aldama, the alleged facilitator of the scheme, Puente maintains the obligation to appear in court every fifteen days, the confiscation of his passport, and the prohibition against leaving Spain.

The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard published this on Monday the report on the alleged involvement of the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, in the Koldo/Ábalos plot related to the purchase of face masks and antigen test kits during the pandemic. The text pointed to the "influence" that commission agent Víctor de Aldama had on the purchase of medical supplies by the Canary Islands government, which Torres presided over during the pandemic. However, it does not confirm that the current Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory received any commission. This is precisely what Torres has been boasting about this afternoon: "Nowhere in the report is there any criminal activity by the government I had the honor of leading," he stated at a press conference. The minister, in this regard, announced a lawsuit against De Aldama for intrusion into his honor and that of his family, his privacy, and his image.

A new report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard points to the "influence" that commission agent Víctor de Aldama may have had on the Canary Islands government of Ángel Víctor Torres (PSOE), the current Minister of Territorial Policy, in the purchase of contracts for masks and antigen tests during the pandemic. Specifically, the UCO report, presented this Monday to the National Court and accessed by ARA, indicates that Aldama's influence was exerted through the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, and his former advisor, Koldo García. Thus, the Canary Islands government of Ángel Víctor Torres would be implicated, according to the UCO report, in the alleged corruption scheme surrounding Aldama, Ábalos, and Koldo, which originated in alleged illegal payments for the purchase of masks during the pandemic. For this reason, the People's Party (PP) has called for the minister's immediate dismissal.

The strategy of spite is one of the most useful for bringing corruption to the surface in the media, and Telecinco has its hand broken. Mayte Zaldívar has been the leading figure since she went on air live in 2004, explaining how her ex-husband, Julián Muñoz, kept garbage bags full of bundles of bills at home. Resentful of the cuckolding the mayor of Marbella had put on her with Isabel Pantoja, she raised the hue and cry in one of the most high-profile cases of embezzlement of public funds and urban planning malfeasance in Spain. Two years later, Cachuli was imprisoned. On Monday, it was the turn of José Luis Ábalos's ex-wife, who opened her mouth, fed up with the deception and harassment of her former husband. The former Minister of Transport unsuccessfully tried to stop the broadcast through legal proceedings. Carolina Perles told a sordid and terrifying story of commissions, prostitutes, Viagra, parties, and drugs to supplement the precarious management of her portfolio as minister.

In the plot of the Montoro case There is a key element that investigators are trying to unravel: how Equipo Económico, the law firm linked to the former Minister of Finance, diverted money allegedly paid by large companies so that the PP could pass laws tailored to its interests. To do so, according to the judge, the firm created a network of shell companies that issued invoices but, in practice, had no other commercial activity or partners other than those of Equipo Económico. Thus, the money did not leave the perimeter of Montoro's collaborators, who took over the business when, supposedly, the former PP leader disengaged (something the investigator also questions). And this is where the figure of Luis Miguel Triguero López, a businessman and expert in the creation of commercial companies, comes into focus. He is no stranger to those who have followed the fine print of scandals linked to economic and political corruption in Spain in recent years.

"I have neither lied nor withheld information." This is how the Speaker of Congress, Francina Armengol, responded when asked by the Senate's Koldo case investigation committee why, in her last appearance, she claimed not to know businessman Víctor de Aldama, even though she now admits she met with him there in November 2020. After Aldama said he had been at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Balearic Islands Government, the former island president explained that she reviewed the agenda with her team and that it "only" makes sense to her that Aldama accompanied Air Europa executive Pepe Hidalgo at the Consolat de Mar as an advisor on one occasion.

They landed in a dark, damp, and debris-filled space: the trash compactor. Dirty water covered the floor, and the air smelled of rusty metal. Pieces of junk, broken circuits, organic remains... That was the end of the things forgotten by the Empire. And perhaps the people too. With a dry, mechanical noise, one of the compartment's walls began to move inexorably. Then the other. The compactor was activating. The walls were beginning to close together. There was no way out. The room would become a metal tomb.

The most sordid week in Spanish politics is still in its infancy, with the spectacle that Leire Díez, Javier Pérez Dolset, and Víctor de Aldama staged on Wednesday in a Madrid hotel. Three figures who were virtually unknown until recently.

It's been a matter of days: from unknown to front page. She began to tentatively emerge in this analysis last week, until this morning she landed on our front page and on the front page of every newspaper.

Ramón del Valle-Inclán (Vilanova de Arousa, 1866 - Santiago de Compostela, 1936) was a key figure in Spanish literature in the first third of the 20th century with works such as Lights of Bohemia, where she develops the theory of the grotesque. Since then, this word has been used to define tragicomic spectacles such as the one witnessed this Wednesday in a Madrid hotel with the appearance of the now former PSOE member Leire Díez and the appearance of the businessman accused of corruption, Víctor de Aldama, to rebuke her. But let's take it one step at a time.

The Leire Díez case has exploded into Spanish politics and revealed the dirty war raging in the judicial system: negotiations, espionage, leaks... The former PSOE member has decided to break his silence. This Wednesday, ten days after The Confidential He published the audio recording in which he offered judicial benefits to a businessman accused in a hydrocarbon case in exchange for digging up dirt on high-ranking officials of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. He did so with an appearance without questions and, subsequently, in various media interviews. Who's who in this whole serial?