The “bad relationship” between father and son is the seventh (and last) of the clues that the judge cites to attribute to Jonathan Andic the death of the founder of Mango, Isak Andic. But it is something more: it is the background noise that runs through the investigation by the Mossos d’Esquadra for a year and a half, the prism through which they view the fatal outcome of the mountain excursion to Montserrat that Isak and Jonathan made, alone, on December 14, 2024. A conflictive relationship between a father and a son does not explain a crime. Things are usually more complicated. But for the investigators, it is a starting point, the foundation from which the rest of the evidence that haunts Jonathan Andic, arrested on Tuesday and released after posting a bail of one million euros to avoid imprisonment, makes sense.
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The death of the richest man in Catalonia at 71 years old has torn the Andic family apart. Whatever the final outcome, the tragedy is evident. If it was an accident, it must have been a terrible, perhaps insurmountable, life episode for Jonathan, who has already been subjected to public judgment: his image as a detainee, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, arriving at the courts of Martorell (Barcelona), has gone around the world. If it was a homicide, it would have been, according to people close to the family, the certification of the great failure in the life of Isak Andic, the man who was able to build a fashion empire but who, in his last breath, saw or knew that his son was throwing him off the path and causing him to fall nearly 100 meters high in Montserrat.
Months of investigation under secrecy, in which the eldest son’s mobile phone has been seized, have tried to clarify precisely that: what happened on the Camí de les Feixades, a peaceful pilgrim route to the Montserrat monastery. For the Mossos, for prosecutor Teresa Yoldi, and for judge Raquel Nieto, everything points to a homicide and that, therefore, a popular jury composed of nine citizens will have to judge Jonathan. That conclusion is based on a total of seven clues, which the police lay out in their reports.
One of the most relevant is that Jonathan visited the same area alone three times in the week prior to the event; on the last of these occasions, he took a route that, in time and location, is almost identical to the one he covered on the 14th with his father, just a few hundred meters from the Collbató parking lot. In the detention order summarizing the facts, the judge holds that there is evidence to say that the eldest son’s participation in the death was “active and premeditated.” And she seems to go further than the prosecutor — who requested bail set at one million — by stating: “The logical consequence is provisional detention to ensure the presence of the accused at trial.”
The investigators also focus on the alleged maneuvers of the eldest son to cover up his actions; in particular, the alleged theft of his old mobile phone during a lightning work trip to Quito (Ecuador) in March 2025. When, six months later, the Mossos waited for him outside the Mango headquarters and asked him to hand over the phone, they found that the device was not the same as the one he had when the accident occurred (an iPhone 14) and that, moreover, he had deleted part of its content. The police are trying to corroborate the suspicion that the stolen phone never signaled in Ecuador.
The investigators have revealed their cards. Now it is time for the defense to show theirs. The lawyers, who have been preparing proceedings on their own for over a year, cling to two ideas. The first is that there is not a single piece of incriminating evidence (an image of what happened, the account of an eyewitness) against Jonathan. The second is that the clues provided by the Mossos do not hold up. Cristóbal Martell, the lawyer leading the strategy, believes that “the homicide conjecture is inconsistent” and warns that “now the process begins,” in which “truth and innocence will shine.”
The therapists, key to the story
Jonathan’s family — he has two sisters, Judith and Sarah — has publicly defended his innocence and reiterated that conviction after the arrest. The accused also maintains, at least for now, the full support of Mango, where he serves as vice president of the board of directors. In his last will, from July 2023, Isak Andic divided his empire (valued at 4.5 billion euros, according to Forbes magazine) equally among his three children. His intention to modify that will, partly to create a charitable foundation (which he conceived as his “legacy to the world” beyond fashion) caused a clash between father and son. Jonathan learned of his intentions, the order emphasizes based on the analyzed messages, “in mid-2024,” a few months before the event.
The relationship between Isak and Jonathan, like that of any father and any son, cannot be understood as unchangeable. They had their ups and downs, changing according to the moment and circumstances. At the start of the investigation, the businessman’s partner of six years, Estefanía Knuth, told the Mossos that both had problems in 2015 for professional reasons. The founder of Mango left the company in his son’s hands upon seeing him ready for the challenge and dedicated himself to traveling the world with his sailboat Nirvana. But he returned earlier than expected. Mango began to falter and, although Jonathan was not alone in decision-making and the economic situation did not help, he was sidelined. His father took the helm of the family business again.
In his first statements to the Mossos as a witness, Jonathan insisted that the handover did not cause any personal or professional problems with his father and emphasized that their relationship was “good.” But, according to the judge, “from the analysis of WhatsApp messages” — Isak Andic had the mobile phone in his pocket when he fell and the Mossos have analyzed his conversations with Jonathan — “the opposite is demonstrated.” “The main reason for the bad relationship was Jonathan’s obsession with money,” the order adds. Sources close to the family explain that the owner of Mango tended to keep his son on a short leash when he tried to embark on business ventures or investments. Whether due to that lack of financial freedom or another reason, the fact is that the eldest son even asked his father for an “inheritance during his lifetime.”
That and other details of the relationship between father and son — for example, that Jonathan had expressed “feeling hatred, resentment, death ideas, and blaming his father for the situation” — would not have come to light if the therapists attending the family had not told the Mossos. The family sought help from professionals after the foundation episode, which worried Jonathan even though, according to sources consulted, it was not going to substantially reduce the inheritance he was to receive. The eldest son seemed to realize that his relationship with money was toxic and father and son set out to “reconcile.” Encouraged by Estefanía Knuth, they underwent therapy. And, to the defense’s annoyance, what they told in the privacy of a room has now been incorporated into a homicide investigation.
On Tuesday, in a very limited interrogation, in which he answered only his lawyer’s questions, Jonathan presented those therapy sessions positively: they had given “good results” and, precisely because of that, at the time of the event he and his father had a “good relationship.”
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