At last. This Monday, October 20, it begins in the National Court the last trial of the Gürtel case: a plot of corruption so complex that it had to be broken down into 12 separate pieces so that researchers could tie all the pieces of the puzzle together. On this occasion, the brains of the network, led by Francisco Correaand the lawyers, tax advisors and front men who masterminded the illegal business goings-on for a decade (1999-2009) will sit in the dock for tax fraud, document falsification, illicit association and money laundering. We are talking about 21 accused.
The holding of this latest trial will be the final chapter of one of the biggest scandals that has hit the PP. So hard that it ended with the Government of Mariano Rajoy after the motion of censure presented by the PSOE of Pedro Sanchezonce the first of the sentences in the case was known, in 2018. The Court is now judging the maneuvers that Correa and his team carried out to hide abroad the money they earned “through their intermediation in the granting of irregular awards.” The investigating judge determined 30,945,506.97 euroswith cents included, the commissions received for “their allegedly illicit activities.”
The Prosecutor’s Office requests 77 years in prison for Correa. He, who is currently free, has already sent a new confession to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court to fulfill the commitment that he continues to collaborate with justice. There are only three pages in which the ‘Soleado’ account, opened in Switzerland, is mentioned. “Those who knew perfectly well the illicit origin of my capital abroad were Arturo Fasana and Dante Canonica“says Correa. Fasana and Canonica are two renowned brokers, already famous for being the agents and front men who managed in Switzerland the 65 million that Juan Carlos I received from the monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Curiously, neither of them will be tried.
It remains to be seen if Correa gives new details in the trial or limits himself to ratifying what the Prosecutor’s Office and the investigating judge found out during the investigation. Another of those who has presented confession is Pablo CrespoCorrea’s top collaborator and who became organizational secretary of the Galician PP. “As consideration in relation to my participation in various businesses with Mr. Correa, receipt of commissions for works awards and to channel the amounts received in an opaque manner to the treasury, I established several companies in Panama,” admits Crespo. In short, the plot he made so much money putting together public contracts and organizing events, which decided hide it outside Spain. The culmination of the absurdity is that Correa, a wealthy businessman for years and with a high standard of living, did not submit any Income Tax Returns in years.
The question that investigators ask themselves is whether they have really discovered all the money that the defendants were hiding abroad. Many of the companies that Correa and his people created in Spain had as shareholders “companies located in ‘offshore’ territories, although different instrumental entities located in European Union countries are involved.” For example, a Spanish company had as a shareholder another in Portugal, another in the United Kingdom, and this last one to another on the Island of Nevisa Caribbean island considered a tax haven. Correa had the help to configure this corporate network of the lawyer Luis de Miguel Pérez and the prosecutor Ramon Blanco Balinwho will also be judged.
Economist and tax advisor, Ramón Blanco Balín was the financial mastermind of the plot, an expert in money laundering. State finance inspector. friend of José María Aznarwith great contacts in the business world. Your resume is brilliant. He has held positions in 40 companies, including Banco Zaragozano, Barclays Bank, NH Hoteles and Gas Natural. In 1996, after Aznar’s victory, Blanco Balín joined Repsol as a director. In the year 2000 Alfonso Cortinathe president, appointed him his deputy and in 2002 he was elected CEO. In those years he was also the representative of the Alcor Financial Corporation, the holding company of ‘Los Albertos’ (Cortina and Alcocer). He has also sent a confession to the Court, stating that he met Correa through Alejandro AgagAznar’s son-in-law, and who began working for them because “they indicated to him that they had many good relationships with various members of the Popular Party, and influence in obtaining public contract awards.”
Furthermore, they will be judged José Luis Izquierdowho was the accountant of the plot, and several front men who helped Correa hide his funds, for example, in Panama, the United States (in Miami, Correa bought several apartments) and the British Virgin Islands. Izquierdo is a peculiar character. The complex network of notes, records, entries and exits of the accounting of the main companies in the plot passed through his head. He confessed when he was arrested that Correa asked him “that when I referred to him I will call him Don Vito”, like the boss from the movie ‘The Godfather’.
José Luis Izquierdo was arrested on the morning of February 6, 2009 in an office on Serrano Street, almost at the same time that his boss Correa was arrested 640 kilometers away, in Sotogrande (Cádiz). Two police officers accompanied Izquierdo to the garage and thoroughly searched his Mercedes C220, but found nothing. The next destination was Izquierdo’s house, in the Madrid municipality of Coslada. There they seized a computer, but something was missing. After the house, Izquierdo himself was searched. In one of his pockets, 65,000 euros in 500 euro bills. But it wasn’t what they were looking for either.
Then one of the police officers noticed that Izquierdo had made a fist with his left hand. Strongly. The agent looked at his partner and smiled. “Open your hand, please.” Correa’s ‘B’ box accounting had just been discovered hidden in a small black pen drive with 8 gigabytes of capacity, and with it, the secrets of the plot. “The fucking pen drive, man. Without that pen drive they wouldn’t have anything, I’m sick,” Paco Correa would later say in prison to one of his lawyers.
They will also sit in the dock Antoine SanchezCorrea’s cousin, and the powerful businessman José Luis Ulibarri. It owns 50% of television in Castilla y León and is the owner of several media outlets in that region, including ‘El Mundo de Castilla y León’ and several local newspapers. He was already convicted in another part of the case, and in this one the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 14 years in prison, fines of 20 million euros and the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies or public aid for four years.
The 11 trials held to date on the Gürtel plot have already left almost a hundred people sentenced to prison terms. A thorough x-ray of this list makes it clear that the Gürtel swallowed up the bowels of the PP like a hydra. It has already been proven, for example, that the popular ones managed a box B with which they financed the renovation of their headquarters on Génova Street. Among the popular convicts are the party’s former treasurers Luis Bárcenas and Angel Sanchis; the former deputy and former vice president of Castilla y León Jesus Merino; the former general secretary of the Valencian PP Ricardo Costa; and the former Madrid councilor Alberto Lopez Viejowhich was part of the Governments of Esperanza Aguirre.
The list is completed by regional deputies such as Benjamin Martin Vasco and Alfonso Bosch; and former Madrid mayors such as Guillermo Ortega (Majadahonda), Jesus Sepúlveda (Pozuelo de Alarcón) Arturo González Panero (Boadilla del Monte) and Gines Lopez (Arganda del Rey). Without forgetting that the PP has already been convicted on three occasions for profit, that is, for benefiting from the illicit businesses of the plot. Justice is slow but inexorable. This particular piece opened in August 2008. Almost two decades later, the Audience will be able to close the curtain on this ill-fated film.
