Court of Auditors submits USB drive with PSOE donors to National Court
The oversight body sent a sealed envelope containing a list of names of donors to the PSOE over the past decade. The judge is investigating whether there was "smurfing" to channel illegal commissions as donations.
Judge Ismael Moreno receives secret list of PSOE donors in case of irregular financing
The Court of Auditors has sent to the National Court a USB drive in a sealed envelope containing the names and surnames of all persons who made donations to the PSOE during the past decade. According to elmundo.es, sources close to the investigation confirmed the delivery to the court handling the secret brief on possible irregular financing of the party.
Investigating judge Ismael Moreno had requested this list from both the PSOE itself and the oversight body following testimonies from businessman Víctor de Aldama. The request covers the period between 2017 — when Pedro Sánchez was elected general secretary — and 2024.
"Smurfing": commissions disguised as donations
The list is key to contrasting Aldama's version, who claims to have paid illegal commissions to the PSOE that were divided among multiple donors to appear legal. According to his account, he delivered cash to Koldo García, adviser to then Organisation Secretary José Luis Ábalos, and the latter ensured that party members or sympathisers deposited those amounts at Ferraz as if they were individual contributions.
This operation is called "smurfing": the political party financing law allows receiving donations, but with limits — up to 10,000 or 50,000 euros depending on the cases — so it would have been necessary to distribute among a group of alleged donors the up to 300,000 euros that Aldama claims reached the Socialist headquarters as commission for Venezuelan oil.
Sánchez reveals actions from secret brief on TVE
The Government president confirmed in an intervention on TVE that the party had received the court request and had delivered the required information. He stressed that the donations received by the PSOE are "within the law". It is unprecedented for a head of government to publicly reveal actions framed in a secret judicial brief.
The judge requested the list in duplicate — from the party and from the Court of Auditors — despite the fact that, in theory, the information should be consistent. The oversight body gathers this list each year from all parties to verify that donors meet legal requirements, although in its public reports it publishes only global figures, never identities. The president of the Court of Auditors, Enriqueta Chicano, has explained on various occasions that her body lacks means and powers to detect possible off-the-books accounts, as it cannot determine whether money delivered by a donor comes from an illegal commission.
The police investigation: cross-referencing names with circles
The volume of the list requires the judge to commission judicial police to carry out laborious investigation. Officers must detect, among other matters, whether there are donors linked to Koldo García, Ábalos or Santos Cerdán, and whether those persons actually had economic capacity to make those contributions or whether they previously received the cash.
The Court of Auditors did not alert to irregular donations in any of its annual reports on the PSOE, although the body itself acknowledges the limits of its oversight capacity against alleged parallel accounting.
Apamate, PDVSA and the "Zapatero circle"
The origin of this entire investigation is the testimonies given by Aldama before Judge Moreno in March and July, under court secrecy. In them he places the company Apamate Corporate & Trust as the central vehicle through which illegal funds would have been channelled to finance the PSOE and the Socialist International.
According to his version, following a request for money made in late 2019 by Ábalos and Koldo García, it was the "Zapatero circle" who demanded that he articulate the operation through that company, controlled by businessman Francisco Flores. Aldama recounted to the judge that, after speaking with then Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, he was put in contact with Apamate to channel funds to Spain from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
According to his account, the former Transport Minister and his right-hand man urged him to close a first operation in the form of an advance on an oil quota allocation valued at 249 million euros, which was formally awarded to him a couple of months later. The first transfer was channelled through Russia to circumvent international sanctions. Aldama has provided documentation to the court in support of his testimony.
Francisco Flores, between Maduro, Zapatero and Spanish healthcare
Following Aldama's account before the judge, Francisco Flores was a businessman close to Nicolás Maduro's regime, but especially to Jorge Rodríguez, brother of Delcy and president of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Delcy Rodríguez herself would have made clear to Aldama that Flores answered to Jorge's sphere, not hers.
A few months after the operation now being investigated by Spanish justice, Flores became a client of Análisis Relevante, the consultancy promoted by former Government president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. According to the investigating judge, that company was used for collecting commissions. Flores went on to pay 120,000 euros to that company. The former Spanish head of government, who maintained a close personal relationship with Flores, even managed access to Spanish doctors for his healthcare.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)