UCO geolocates Leire Díez at Guardia Civil headquarters during plot
Investigators tracked the mobile phone of the alleged network leader and located her at the armed institute's headquarters, where she maintained contacts with its director.
UCO geolocates Leire Díez at Guardia Civil headquarters during plot
Officers from the Central Operational Unit managed to locate Leire Díez inside the building that houses the headquarters of the Armed Institute in the capital. The location was determined through the mobile phone device of the person under investigation at a time when officers were already monitoring her movements, according to the police report that forms part of the case being tried by Santiago Pedraz at the National Court, which El Mundo has accessed.
10 December 2024 emerged as a decisive date. That day, investigators gathered the first elements which, in their view, showed that Díez was conveying to Mercedes González—the supreme authority of the force—data from the illicit operations she was carrying out at that time. Those operations, according to the UCO, were aimed in part at the Armed Institute itself, specifically at the unit in charge of investigations and certain members of it.
This assessment rests, among other circumstances, on what was discussed during a meeting held on that date between Díez herself, businessman Pérez Dolset, lawyer Jacobo Teijelo—also charged—and Captain Juan Sánchez Yepes, also prosecuted for his alleged assistance to the organisation. During that meeting, the person under investigation mentioned the closeness she claimed to have with González and indicated that she would get in touch with her to convey certain demands from Captain Yepes. "In principle, my next conversation is going to be with the director of the Guardia Civil [...] she is someone I trust," she stated, according to the police documentation.
This is not the only episode in which the alleged network leader alludes to her link with the head of the force. In September 2024, shortly after González took on the position, Díez already made that connection clear. "I need to speak with Mercedes. There is no trust with Marlaska," she noted, referring to the Interior minister. Based on these notes, investigators infer that the person under investigation did maintain a relationship of trust with the director general, in contrast to the one she had with the minister.
The appointment of Mercedes González to head the Armed Institute has prompted multiple questions from the outset. She took on the position while combining, for five months, the direction of the force with the role of general secretary of the political party in Madrid, which has established her as a person closely linked to the party organisation. Judge Pedraz links her to the alleged "sewers" of the party and believes that she investigated the conduct of officers from her own institute at the behest of members of the criminal structure, with the aim of intimidating them and generating distrust in their environment.
Source: El Mundo