The legal trial which began under the discreet name of “Operation Delorme” took a leap forward this week with the statement of businessman Víctor de Aldama. An appearance with which he gained the freedom and confidence of the prosecution by recognizing the corrupting role attributed to him, but also alleging a transfer of envelopes with politicians not linked to the case and accusations, for the moment without proof, according to which even the President of the Government. A case between two courts of the National Tribunal, the Supreme Court and the far right who have been trying for months to relaunch the investigation into Delcy Rodríguez and even overlap with the trial against Begoña Gómez.
Víctor de Aldama was first arrested in February this year, as part of an anti-corruption operation in which his name barely came up. “Operation Delorme,” as it was then called, had as its main protagonist Koldo García, the shadow of former minister José Luis Ábalos, and under the magnifying glass, the million-dollar rewards from the pandemic to the companies that provided medical supplies, including masks. . A dozen public awards for 53 million euros to the company Soluciones de Gestión SL, in which Aldama was, like so many secondary actors in this type of plot.
At that time, in front of the general public, Víctor de Aldama’s letter of introduction indicated that he was manager of the Zamora football club. But the summary gave him a key role in a conspiracy which, according to the National Court, used his contacts in public administrations and his proximity to Ábalos to obtain contract after contract, commissions and gifts by and with the restaurant “La Chalana” of. Madrid as base of operations. Awards in ministries and public companies but also in autonomous communities such as the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands, then governed by the PSOE.
Buried under the flood of headlines devoted to the more political aspect of the case, Víctor de Aldama went relatively unnoticed and was provisionally released until his second arrest in October this year. Another court of the same National Court dismantled an organization allegedly dedicated to evading up to 182 million euros in taxes on profits from the lucrative hydrocarbon sector. That day, the judge placed the businessman and commission agent in pre-trial detention without bail.
Once again, the “instrumental business networks”, described the prosecution, as well as “a strong capacity for corruption among administration officials”, not to obtain public contracts, but to use front companies who buy gasoline without paying VAT and who, by Once the taxman knocks on their door to collect the tax, they have already disappeared from the map. A carousel of tax fraud, common in the courts of the National Tribunal, but without the political implications that the Koldo case offered, which, at this stage, is already the Ábalos case, the former Minister of Development and former number two of the Le PSOE, now ousted by his party and representing himself with a seat in Congress.
Two judges of the National Court, Ismael Moreno and Santiago Pedraz, are investigating two different cases with the same protagonist: Víctor de Aldama. Under the direction of his lawyer, José Antonio Choclán, he requested to testify in one case to be free in the other. For two hours, he gave all kinds of data and details to Judge Moreno about his role in the “Koldo affair” and almost simultaneously requested the release of Judge Pedraz in the case related to massive hydrocarbon fraud.
Anti-corruption understands that, in practice, it has recognized the crimes attributed to it, it has given details that can help elucidate new crimes and that, therefore, there is no longer any risk of leak. The public prosecutor understands that his most striking statements – according to which the president of the government wanted to take a photo with him and not the other way around as the author of the image himself claims – are not relevant but that the The essence of his statement was useful. Judge Pedraz, having no opportunity to do anything else, released him Thursday afternoon. And as soon as he left prison, in front of the microphones, he again addressed the president of the government, who, that morning, had accused him of having invented what concerned him: “Don’t worry, you you will have proof of it.
Víctor de Aldama’s statement had the usual form of a cluster bomb in major corruption cases with political aspects. From businessmen like David Marjaliza, whose judges gave credibility to the massive confessions in the Púnica case, to the endless succession of photographs of the “Mediator” Navarro Tacoronte, the judges still have the task of differentiating between credible evidence fireworks. And the particularities of the case meant that Judge Ismael Moreno made these two hours of testimony of Víctor de Aldama known not only to the court that is investigating him for the hydrocarbon conspiracy, but also to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court .
Ábalos’ accusation, pending
The most political ramifications of the case have been in the hands of the Supreme Court and its second chamber for several days. At the request of the prosecution, the judge decided to bring part of the case to the courtroom that judges convicts in Spain so that the role of José Luis Ábalos in the plot allegedly led by his right-hand man Koldo García could be the subject of an investigation. The court has so far limited itself to taking up the case without launching any proceedings. But he now has new material on the table. Confessions of Víctor de Aldama that the rest of the accused deny, among other things, due to the lack of evidence that the businessman, at the prison gates, promised to correct.
The accused businessman claims to have paid commissions to Koldo García (100,000 euros), to José Luis Ábalos (250,000 euros) and even to people who do not appear in the trial: Santos Cerdán, current number two of the PSOE and the current minister Ángel Víctor Torres, who announced legal proceedings due to the falsity of the accusation. The judges already knew some of the things he had said, such as that his contact with Koldo García was his escort brother Rubén de Aldama, his great influence in Mexico as a commercial attaché and that he was responsible for channel the orders that came from the millionaire business of the pandemic.
At the National Court, Aldama also spent time clarifying or ironing out certain conclusions of the reports of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. “Grease the machine,” which was attributed to paying bills to corrupt officials, means, according to the businessman, “grease the Zamora machine” and get the football team promoted. . And the money he repeatedly gave to a commander of the Civil Guard, he added, was not a handout but a means of financing his own collaboration with the organization’s anti-terrorist unit. In his long statement, he assured that he had been asked for money for a collaborator of Minister María Jesús Montero in exchange for facilitating a procedure for one of his companies.
The details of his relationship with José Luis Ábalos, which Ábalos himself categorically denied when asking to testify again, will be examined by the Supreme Court judge in charge of the case. “Mr. Ábalos had a series of expenses that his salary did not cover,” explained Aldama, then said he saw with his own eyes that sometimes it was the minister of the time who personally collected the packages of money . Or that he agreed to pay for an apartment in Madrid for a woman with whom Ábalos had “an extramarital relationship” and which amounted to more than 80,000 euros spread over several annuities.
From Delcy Rodríguez’s trip to the rescue of Air Europa
From the National Court, Víctor de Aldama’s statement made the jump to the Supreme Court, where José Luis Ábalos committed to denying the accusations against him without having been able to testify during almost a year of investigation. He also dedicated part of his appearance to recount his relationship with the vice-president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, and his brief stay in Spain in February 2020 despite the ban on entering Schengen territory.
According to his version, several Spanish ministries were aware of the visit and it was on the very day of his arrival that they practically asked him to turn around in mid-flight and return to Caracas by the planned route. The case has already been analyzed at the criminal level, both by a court in Madrid and by the Supreme Court itself, where the judges understood that there was no crime of prevarication even in the event of violation of the norms international. Most recently, a court in the capital rejected Vox’s request to reopen the case, although it is foreseeable that Aldama’s statement will be used in further attempts to revive the trial.
Another part of the statement revolved around the rescue of hundreds of millions of euros at Air Europa, under the control for months of popular far-right accusations that the Koldo case shares with the investigation of Begoña Gómez at the court of Juan Carlos. Aldama did not provide many details, saying only that he had participated in the bailout negotiations. One of the obsessions of accusations like Vox, HazteOir, Iustitia Europa or Liberum, which have been trying for months to unite in one way or another the procedures of the Koldo affair with those of Begoña Gómez, for the moment without success.
The two hours of Víctor de Aldama’s statement are already in the hands of two courts of the National Tribunal and the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, and the porosity of the accusations between these cases and that of Begoña Gómez allows that his statements also reach the table of Juan Carlos Peinado to try to open the door to the rescue of Air Europa closed months ago by the Provincial Court of Madrid.
For now, most of his statements are based on his own words, although the anti-corruption prosecution has given credibility to those relating to the cases the National Court is investigating against him. Both the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and all the socialist political leaders indicated have denied his accusations and announced legal proceedings against him.
Vox, which is appearing in the trial against its political rivals, has already made clear that it considers this statement as ammunition to shoot at government leaders and has called for the indictment of Pedro Sánchez and four other executive ministers. Concerning Santos Cerdán, who, according to Aldama, received a commission of 15,000 euros, Abascal’s party is content with his appearance as a witness. The judicial scenario of the Delorme, Koldo and Ábalos case is very different from that of a week ago: the businessman Víctor de Aldama is free although with precautionary measures and his confession, ideal for fight against a possible reduction of sentence in the future in the who is his lawyer, has caused a judicial and political earthquake which gives him, in practice, all the attention on the biggest judicial problem of the government since the motion of censure of 2018.
