Masks, gasoline, and cement: the interweaving that plagues the PSOE

How do you name a police operation? One investigating a corruption scheme involving the purchase of face masks? On Google, masks + origin soon leads to Charles de Lorme, the 17th-century French physician who advocated the use of face masks to prevent the spread of disease. Quite a metaphor.

This police operation is specifically targeting the virus that, from the heart of the administration, has allegedly benefited from the trafficking of masks, protected by the urgency of the moment.

It's Operation Delorme.

The origin: A complaint from the Madrid People's Party (PP) put nine pandemic contracts under judicial scrutiny.

The operation that has led to the current political crisis in Spain, with the government at risk of derailing following the imprisonment of the former PSOE organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, earlier this week. So far, 35 people have been charged in three plots that converge in some ways.

It's 2020. On March 21st, just a week after the state of emergency was declared, Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas SL signed a contract with Puertos del Estado, an agency under the Ministry of Transport, to supply eight million face masks for €24.2 million. This is the first of nine contracts. In total, the company will invoice approximately €54 million.

Management Solutions, with no experience in the sector, became the major supplier of masks

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, with half the world desperately searching for masks, public procurement oversight mechanisms are reduced to a minimum. De Lorme rubs his hands together.

In addition to Transport, Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas SL secured contracts with the Ministries of the Interior and Health, and with the autonomous communities of the Balearic and Canary Islands, both under socialist governments. It's a company with no experience in the sector or revenue, but it has become a major supplier of key materials.

Around that time, a lawyer, former prosecutor and former judge from Zaragoza, Ramiro Grau, harbored suspicions and prepared a dossier that he sent to the Supreme Court, the State Attorney General's Office, the Moncloa, Vox MP Macarena Olona, ​​and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The first filed it, the next three ignored it, and the last politely replied that they would study it, as Grau explained to El Heraldo .

Businessman Víctor de Aldama is at the center of all the investigations arising from Delorme

It was from the Popular Party of Madrid that, in March 2022, the complaint against these contracts was filed. The fuse that lit a volcano. Patient zero of an epidemic with several outbreaks that has led to the arrest of at least 36 people and the indictment of a similar number in different court cases. Among them was a minister, José Luis Ábalos, who preceded Cerdán as the PSOE's organizational secretary. The key player in the party. The president's most trusted men.

Blindness?

Due to the indictment of Ábalos, a deputy (now isolated) in Congress, the Supreme Court is sharing the investigation with the National Court.

In February 2024, this court ordered a Civil Guard operation against the mask ring. Twenty people were arrested, including two of the people who connect all the lines: Minister Ábalos's advisor, Koldo García Izaguirre, and businessman, commission agent, and former president of Zamora Football Club, Víctor de Aldama.

García's brother and wife, Joseba and Patricia Úriz, were also arrested. Delorme suspects that Koldo has received substantial commissions from the sale of face masks, essential as they were. Some of these were paid with European funds, which the European Prosecutor's Office is also investigating. Soluciones de Gestión has made profits of €17 million, concealed in a network of companies and banks in several countries. And in Benidorm.

De Aldama agreed to his release in exchange for information: he has turned on the fan against the PSOE

There, Koldo has purchased three apartments, with the complicit support of some family members. The Civil Guard suspects that he has been receiving cash payments from various sources, always in exchange for his involvement as a fixer at the Ministry.

In 2019, Ábalos appointed him as a board member of Renfe Mercancías. This is another of the irregularities being investigated by the Civil Guard. Both of them hired close friends in public companies, without specific knowledge or responsibilities.

Koldo isn't apparently the only one increasing his real estate holdings. In October of last year, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard submitted a report to the National Court judge alleging that De Aldama had paid Ábalos with various properties for his assistance in the trafficking of face masks, as well as for his efforts in the rescue of the airline Air Europa. In this case, the possible role of Begoña Gómez, wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, is under investigation. And according to the popular accusations, driven by the far right, the possible role of Sánchez himself.

Supreme Court Judge Leopoldo Puente estimates bribes for public works at five million euros.

De Aldama is involved in all the investigations stemming from Delorme. Venezuelan media have reported on his relationship with Jorge Giménez, president of the country's football federation, and his help in obtaining the money—from a Panamanian bank—for Zamora FC to gain access to the Segunda B spot vacated by Reus due to financial difficulties. He was blocked.

Giménez also appears in the so-called Delcygate scandal . The January 2020 visit of Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to Madrid, despite being banned from entering the Schengen Area. Why? It's not clear.

The UCO believes that 104 gold ingots worth $68 million were delivered to De Aldama on that trip. The controversy in Spain has a political dimension: there are reports that claim that "El 1" was aware of the clandestine visit. Sánchez?

When Víctor de Aldama was released from prison on November 21, he said: "Don't worry, Mr. Sánchez, he'll have proof of everything." The businessman has since opened the fan, his alleged fan. He was imprisoned for his alleged involvement in a hydrocarbon tax fraud scheme, which the Civil Guard estimates at up to €230 million, and has agreed with the Prosecutor's Office to be released on bail in exchange for collaboration, that is, information. Among other things, he claims to have evidence of bribes allegedly received by Minister María Jesús Montero's chief of staff (€25,000), Koldo (€200,000), Ábalos himself (€400,000), and the last in line, Cerdán (€15,000). The fraudulent business requires licenses from the Ministry of Industry, which, according to the Civil Guard, Koldo helps to obtain. The National Court has charged 18 people in the hydrocarbon scheme.

Who is Koldo García? We have to go back even further. Born in 1970, he's from Barakaldo (Vizcaya), but it's in Navarre where he made his career. A brothel bouncer, security guard, councilor in Huarte, he climbed the ranks in the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) as a chauffeur and security guard. In 2015, he was about to repeat his term as councilor (in Doneztebe), but he began doing business close to the public sphere, though it's still unclear exactly how, and resigned. Koldo already knew Cerdán, who is from the Navarrese town of Milagro. Cerdán has been a councilor there since 1999, served as a regional deputy from 2014 to 2017, as a national deputy from 2019 until his resignation on June 16, as secretary of organization for the Socialist Party of Navarre and the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party), and as a key figure in the primaries that propelled Sánchez to the leadership.

By mid-2015, Koldo was already working with Fernando Merino, head of the construction company Acciona for Navarra and La Rioja, and known in the network as Cordobés .

In turn, he has been associated with Joseba Antxon Alonso Egurrola, alias Guipuchi , Guipu , or simply G in the intercepted messages, a businessman from Guipuzcoa and owner of the company Servinabar 2000 SL, initially dedicated to supporting archives and libraries and organizing fairs. A report from the University of Cordoba (UCO) indicates that the company's emergence makes sense when we know who is behind it: Cerdán.

In a recent search, the UCO (Central University of Catalonia) found a 2016 contract under which Cerdán acquired 45% of the company; a contract between two parties is valid even if it's not registered in the commercial registry, explains a Barcelona tax expert. "With witnesses, it could even be oral."

The first business venture in which Koldo García and Merino cooperate is the Muga mine, a potash mine located between Navarre and Aragon. The first document authorizing it, in June 2015, was signed by the Secretary of State for Energy (from the People's Party, now rescued by Feijóo), Alberto Nadal, and the governments of Navarre (Geroa Bai) and Aragon (PSOE).

Supreme Court Judge Leopoldo Puente estimates that the suspected works cost around 500 million, and that the scheme could have taken 1% in commissions.

Acciona and Servinabar are taking on half a dozen public works projects in Navarre, including the Belate tunnel, one of Navarre's largest projects in recent years: 68 million euros. The contract award has raised numerous objections from the contracting committee. Servinabar has business ties to a company owned by Iñaki Alzaga, a member of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV).

Since Koldo moved to Madrid and began cooperating with Ábalos, the group has been involved in a dozen more public works contracts. In addition to Acciona, the companies Obras Públicas y Irrigación (OPR) and Levantina Ingeniería y Construcción (LIC) benefit from the contracts. According to Supreme Court Judge Leopoldo Puente, the total amount of bribes amounts to around €500 million. This represents 1%.

More or less the percentage that De Aldama announced in November when he was released, he took off his mask and started talking.