Whatsapp conversations of the former PSOE member, notes in her agenda, and the positioning of her mobile phone indicate that Leire Díez held at least three face-to-face meetings with the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, in addition to some phone calls. In the messages analyzed by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the armed institute, Díez refers to the senior official of the Ministry of the Interior as a close person (“I have to talk to Mercedes. There is no trust with Marlaska”), despite sources from the Executive assuring that the former member, now under investigation in the National Court, never influenced any operation or internal investigation of the body. The case file made public this Wednesday shows that three reserved reports (internal investigations) were opened against UCO agents involved in inquiries about alleged government corruption and that a general of the body recounted how he was asked for detailed information on all agents investigating the environment of the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez.
All the documentation in the hands of Judge Santiago Pedraz in the National Court within the framework of the Leire Díez case reveals that she — accused of numerous crimes for allegedly obstructing police investigations against the PSOE — not only boasted of having access to high spheres of the State or the Attorney General’s Office, but indeed maintained real contacts, at least, with the director of the Civil Guard.
Specifically, the case file speaks of three meetings that took place between September 2024 and April 2025, in the midst of the Koldo case outbreak and the investigation for public works fraud that affected the former PSOE Organization Secretary, Santos Cerdán, whom Judge Pedraz places at the head of this illegal operation to disrupt ongoing proceedings against socialist members.
Agents report that when Mercedes González was appointed on September 19, 2024, Leire Díez already had “a prior relationship with her” because she stored her contact on her phone since June 2022. A few days after being appointed, both had their first meeting near the headquarters of the General Directorate of the armed institute, on Guzmán el Bueno street in Madrid. The UCO confirms this not only by the coordinates of Leire Díez’s phone that day but also because there is a note on her phone stating “meeting with Mercedes González (GC director)” that day, and conversations between her and the representative of a guards association in which she later refers to this meeting.
Investigators understand that initially the meeting could have been to discuss “salary equalization” issues, but soon signs emerged that Leire Díez was trying to urge González to investigate the UCO for alleged leaks of government matters that ended up in the press. “I just bet a lunch with Mercedes that the leaks come from the UCO,” she told, for example, Koldo García’s lawyer on May 9, 2025.
Díez expressed the familiarity with which she related to her, for example, in a chat with the former UCO member who is charged in a hydrocarbons case, Captain Juan Yepes: “My next conversation will be with the director of the Civil Guard […] she is trustworthy,” is heard in a recording of a meeting with him. Similarly, to the representative of the guards association, she said in September 2024: “I have to talk to Mercedes. There is no trust with Marlaska. I’ll call her today.”
The second meeting between them took place on December 10 of that year, also near the General Directorate. The UCO finds it “significant” that if the appointment was set for 12:30 p.m., at 5:24 p.m. she sent a message to a third party talking about the meeting and referring to “the hydrocarbons matter.” For investigators, this is relevant because the criminal organization under scrutiny undertook a “line of action” aimed at destabilizing criminal cases in the hydrocarbons sector “as a means to destabilize cases affecting the Government or the PSOE.”
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On February 12, 2025, agents located a call between both, and after analyzing Leire Díez’s device, they believe that on May 11 of that year the Whatsapp chat they maintained was deleted. The last meeting they have dated took place a month earlier, on April 2. Agents reflect a conversation that the former PSOE member had with lawyer Ismael Oliver (who defended Koldo García for a time and is also listed as charged in this case): “The meeting with the GC director wasn’t bad. I’m going to see if I keep feeding that channel,” she said. The lawyer replied: “Let’s see if at least we stop the lynching and can face it with some equality of arms.”
Government sources assure that Mercedes González never met Díez in the official office of the Civil Guard nor ever received her as head of the armed institute, so they assert that she could never influence the opening of internal investigations in the body. A spokesperson for the General Directorate has acknowledged to this newspaper that “she had some contact, never in person, with Leire Díez when she [González] was Government delegate in Madrid and Díez held a position at Correos,” but that both have never met at the general directorate headquarters “and much less to harm the UCO,” reports Óscar López-Fonseca.
The leaks
The messages recount how, after the leak to the press of two elements related to the Koldo case, the former socialist member pointed to different lawyers in the case that this information breach came from the UCO. On one hand, the day it became known that the judge opened proceedings against Koldo for “abuse” of his wife, the former ministerial advisor’s lawyer Leticia de la Hoz told Díez: “Pass it to Mercedes to see what she thinks.” That was when she replied “I just passed it,” and added that she had bet a lunch with her that those responsible for the leak were in the UCO. On the other hand, when messages exchanged between former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and members of the Executive, including Pedro Sánchez himself, began to be known, and despite Ábalos’s own lawyer at the time, José Aníbal Álvarez, clarifying that the conversation had not come from the Unit (“I just spoke with the client and he tells me it wasn’t the UCO,” he told Díez), she conveyed to other lawyers that the leakers were in the Civil Guard.
“It seems that everyone already assumes it was the UCO,” Leticia de la Hoz told her the next day. “There are no doubts,” she added. This fact, together with a note in the former member’s agenda at that time that said: “Internal GC investigation for leaks,” has led agents to conclude that she prepared a “channel” through the General Directorate to implicate the UCO in what was being published.
Investigators add that indeed two reserved reports were opened (on May 9 and the 14th of the same month) against UCO members for possible leaks. It is unknown “who decreed it,” agents indicate. The UCO took statements on May 27, the day they raided several properties of people linked to the plot, from three Civil Guard generals regarding these facts, and one of them, Rafael Yuste (former head of the UCO) explained how on May 8 he informed director Mercedes González that a campaign of discredit against the Unit’s agents was underway without her subsequently doing anything or reporting these facts to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Furthermore, in September 2025 a new reserved report was initiated that culminated with the summons as witnesses of several UCO agents and, at that time, the Chief of Staff requested from the UCO chief an organizational chart that would allow framing the investigators of the cases affecting “the environment of the President of the Government,” also requesting a nominal list of those with official rank.
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