The investigation into Cristóbal Montoro has reached the courts in Tarragona. A 249-page report from the Tax Agency, to which ARA has had access, details the operation through which gas companies attempted to conceal payments made to Equipo Económico, the firm founded by Montoro, who was Minister of Finance at the time, in exchange for the tax on economic activities. They established "three initial layers." First, the total agreed-upon amount was divided among different payers. Then, the amount corresponding to each company was broken down into "small sums" to make it more difficult to trace. Finally, the payment was made into at least "two different bank accounts." Furthermore, the payments were made with a deferral under the formal guise of a "success bonus" to distance them from their true origin. However, the payments "coincided temporally" with the progress of the legislative changes.

The judge in the Montoro case takes another step in the investigation. The head of court number 2 in Tarragona, who is investigating the alleged scheme of tax favors to companies from the Ministry of Finance In exchange for financial benefits, he has requested a whole series of documents from the former PP minister and the companies under investigation. In a ruling that also extends the investigation for another six months, Judge Rubén Rus grants the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and requires the judicial police to provide a whole series of information, including the deeds of constitution and dissolution of the marital property regimes of several of those under investigation, such as Montoro himself. He also requests the complete registry entries, reports, and annual accounts between 2008 and 2025 of Equipo Económico, the firm linked to the former minister and which investigators place at the epicenter of the alleged corruption network, and of other companies, including those listed.

The Montoro case is one of the most notorious scandals of recent years because it involves alleged corruption at the heart of the State, in the Ministry of Finance, and because the modus operandi It represents a torpedo in the waterline of the democratic system: the former PP minister allegedly used his influence within Mariano Rajoy's government to benefit specific economic sectors that, in turn, paid a lobby, Equipo Económico, founded by himself. However, despite the suspicions of Mossos d'Esquadra investigators that Montoro profited from this profit through front men and shell companies, is it possible that the case will end in nothing?

The case being investigated by Tarragona judge Rubén Ruso regarding Cristóbal Montoro is limited to the fact that he tailors laws in exchange for money through the Economic Team office. The press or, much more seriously, ordering tax inspections of inconvenient journalists or politicians as a method of intimidating them. The newspaper's investigation Abc, who is the first to publish information about the shady dealings at the firm founded by Montoro, and Carles Mulet, a senator from the Compromís party who engaged in heated debates with the minister in the upper house.

The coincidence of the Cerdán case and the Montoro case has led to an unprecedented situation in Spanish politics: both major parties, the PP and PSOE, have been hit by large-scale, albeit different, corruption scandals (in the first case, we're talking about a small group that took commissions from companies, and in the second, an entire changing ministry). Until now, corruption had led to more or less abrupt ends to political cycles, as in the case of Felipe González's administration for the PSOE or Rajoy's administration for the PP, but an election had never been reached in a situation, let's say, of a dead heat. And everything points to the fact that in the next elections, whenever they may be, both parties will have ammunition to fire at their opponents and mobilize their own supporters.

When the full story of the seven-year investigation into the Montoro case is to be written, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Carmen María García Cerdá, will have to be given a very prominent place. has had to face Over the years, he has worked with his superiors to successfully navigate an investigation that some seemed to have a vested interest in torpedoing. Given the clear evidence in the case file, it's hard to understand why the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office would backtrack on some key steps, such as the tapping of the phones of those involved, which was only active for a few days, or the access to the corporate emails of senior Treasury officials to investigate a possible crime of disclosure of secrets.

Since Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez explicitly referred to Ignacio Sánchez Galán, chairman of Iberdrola, and Ana Botín, chairwoman of Banco Santander, in an appearance in the Congress of Deputies three years ago, the business world has been scrutinizing his interventions. "If [these two executives] protest, let's go in the right direction," Sánchez stated immediately after announcing the extraordinary taxes on energy companies and banks. Since then, businesses, especially large companies, have lived with the feeling that they could be singled out at any moment. Now, the outbreak of the Montoro case has set off alarm bells once again, says a businessman close to the major Spanish and Catalan employers' associations.

The case that affects the alleged corruption of former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro has taken another turn. The Tarragona judge investigating the plot has made it clear in several rulings, which were released this Thursday, that he sees no crime in Montoro, now charged with multiple offenses, receiving emails from his team containing tax information of politicians from different parties, including his opponents. Thus, he denies the appearance of former PP minister Rodrigo Rato and former Podemos leader Juan Carlos Monedero as injured parties, because he sees no illegality in the theft of their data, as they were "fully authorized" and "legitimate" to receive it, according to the judge. On the other hand, he has accepted the appearance of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), the only one he has validated, while he has rejected that of a journalist.

The alleged corruption case of former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro has turned the political scene in Spain upside down. The Spanish government seized on this scandal to breathe, change the agenda, and shift the focus away from the Cerdán case to once again highlight the corruption of the People's Party (PP). In the midst of his tour of Latin America, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez has returned to the fray with a promise regarding the Montoro case: he wants to end the tax privileges that certain companies could have obtained as a result of the laws promoted by the former minister.

In the midst of the storm of corruption by the Montoro case, the leader of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, once again shrugged off responsibility this Wednesday, calling for an investigation that goes "to the end" and pointing to the "corruption record" of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez. But he didn't stop there and continued to raise the tone on immigration linked to insecurity, while polls are boosting Vox's popularity in Spain. like that of the CIS, with his forceful tone on this issue. In an interview on Cuatro, the Popular Party leader not only repeated what he had already said last week with a defense of the deportation of "illegal immigrants", but has opened the door to expelling legal immigrants who commit crimes. All of this, under an umbrella that rejects "populism" and "do-goodism." "When the immigrant is irregular, they will be expelled immediately; when the immigrant is legal, it depends on the crime they commit; they may be expelled immediately or, on the contrary, they will have to be tried and the appropriate sentence sought," he asserted, if they have made it clear that it is necessary to reconsider. "Their place in the future" in the case of legal immigrants.

The outbreak of the Montoro case has put the PP and the Treasury in the spotlight. The general secretary of the Treasury technicians' union, Gestha, José María Mollinedo, speaks to ARA to address the issue.

Yesterday an almost paranormal phenomenon occurred: President Isla, the Minister of the Interior Parlón, Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras all agreed to react in the same way and on the same topic: the interview in ARA of Ione Belarra saying that she is against Catalonia having the powers in immigration so that The Mossos d'Esquadra would carry out racist raids.

The outbreak of the Montoro case brings together all the immutable ingredients of the traditional manger, stripping away every strand of corruption that is more systemic than systematic, and shaking the political-emotional counter to the provisional benefit of Vox. As always, fashions pass, and only the rubble remains, amidst an oblivion that only cracks when a new mess erupts. Then we look in the rearview mirror, remember where we came from, and wonder what the hell has never changed. In memory corner, regarding the judicial state of affairs, we must remember that three former ministers were convicted and imprisoned from the Aznar regime—Rodrigo Rato, Eduardo Zaplana, Jaume Matas—and that others were also investigated, with cases closed or narrowly acquitted. From the Felipe González administration, with a firm judicial signature, the following were convicted, among others: a Minister of the Interior, the party's finance coordinator, several bankers, the brother of Vice President Alfonso Guerra, and CESID sewer errand boys—and an entire Minister of Defense, Nar, resigned, all in the Royal Household. From Mariano Rajoy's governments, Montoro is currently in the air, but Fernández Díaz is awaiting trial, where he is facing a 15-year prison sentence for patriot While his Minister of Health was already convicted, for profit, in the Gürtel case. In the preliminary indictment phase alone, three people have already left Sánchez's Peugeot—two of whom were party organizational secretaries—and now only one remains at the wheel, named Pedro. That's how things stand. As if we forget every day that the flagship of the series is called Juan Carlos I and still lives like a king in Abu Dhabi.

I don't wish Montoro any harm, not even anything close to the harm he tried to inflict on this newspaper in 2018, but I wonder why the judge doesn't take away his passport or make him appear every week to sign it. At least. If you read what the newspapers are reporting on his case today, it's outrageous: