The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office sees it likely that there will be “new charges” in the branch of the Koldo case where the alleged collection of kickbacks in exchange for public works contracts is being investigated, another supposed scheme for which the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán, his predecessor and former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García, the alleged fixer Víctor de Aldama, and several builders are charged, according to the report in which it advocates extending these investigations for six more months.
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In his report, accessed by EL PAÍS, anti-corruption prosecutor Luis Pastor argues that it is not possible to consider this line of investigation concluded because there is still a large amount of information to analyze. Pastor indicates that, “of all this material pending examination and report,” it is not only “highly probable ―given the complexity of the case― that new investigative proceedings may arise,” but also “not dismissible, new charges.”
The prosecutor explains that, since this line of investigation was opened almost a year ago, searches and information requests have been carried out, in addition to the set of material that feeds the Koldo case, and that all this documentation, “both on paper and in digital format,” “will require time to proceed with its complete examination and report.”
In this regard, the prosecutor recalls that “reports are pending from the police unit in charge of the investigations,” the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, “related to the public works contracts under investigation.” The asset report on Cerdán is also pending, whom the investigators place as the alleged ringleader of the public works scheme, which is why he was held in pretrial detention for almost five months.
It was precisely a UCO report that uncovered this branch of the Koldo case, until then focused solely on the alleged payments from Aldama and his partners to Ábalos and his trusted man to secure public contracts to buy masks during the coronavirus pandemic. The businessman pointed to the existence of this other scheme in his November 2024 confession before the National Court by mentioning a “Basque quota” managed by Cerdán, but without giving further details. Once that police report became known, which was based on recordings made by Koldo García between 2019 and 2023, the then deputy and PSOE Organization Secretary resigned from both positions, and the Supreme Court judge investigating Ábalos, García, and Aldama at that time, given the former minister’s parliamentary immunity, charged him.
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Soon after, on June 30, 2025, he ordered his pretrial detention as the alleged mastermind of the illegal awarding of public works contracts. Judge Leopoldo Puente assigned Cerdán a “leading role,” not only because of those conversations but also upon finding a private document that identified him as owning 45% of Servinabar, the company of his partner and friend Antxon Alonso, which secured several of the contracts under suspicion in a Temporary Business Union (UTE) with Acciona. According to the UCO, Servinabar pocketed 2% of what the construction giant billed for those works, and Cerdán and his family enjoyed the money obtained by the Navarrese company through salary payments, the rent of two apartments (one of them the family residence in Madrid for years), and a credit card on which numerous expenses were charged, including purchases and trips.
After five months, the judge released Cerdán, considering that the risk of flight, destruction of evidence, and witness tampering initially perceived had been mitigated after a new round of searches and information requests.
The investigations continued in the Supreme Court until last January, when Ábalos resigned his seat, thus losing his parliamentary immunity before the high court and, with it, the court’s jurisdiction to investigate him. The Supreme Court retained only the part already sent to trial: the alleged mask purchase scheme and the role played in it by the former minister, his former advisor, and Aldama. The trial was held in April and is pending judgment. The former number three of the PSOE and his former right-hand man face up to 30 years in prison, but the businessman faces only a sentence of up to 7 years because both the Prosecutor’s Office and the popular accusations rewarded his confession. The rest of the investigation into the Koldo case, by contrast, ended up in the National Court, where it began.
From there, Judge Ismael Moreno continues the investigations, both the main part ―related to irregularities in awarding contracts to buy medical supplies― and the separate pieces on public works and on cash payments made by the PSOE to Ábalos and García to reimburse them for advanced expenses, which investigators suspect were used to launder money from their alleged corrupt activities. This other line of investigation remains secret.
