The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard and prosecutors Elisa Lamelas and Mar Scharfhausen, from the Anti-Corruption unit, are following the money trail in the so-called Leire Díez case. With the support of the National Court, investigators have pushed the tracking of dozens of bank accounts to find out who the “ultimate financiers” of the alleged plot led by former socialist member Leire Díez and Santos Cerdán, former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, are, who allegedly sought to “destabilize” judicial processes that could implicate the party and Pedro Sánchez’s government. The agents and the public prosecutor’s office have already detected a suspicious flow of thousands of euros among several people involved in the case — with deposits coming even from the party — but they believe there are still “certain payments” to be clarified.
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In a report dated July 21 and sent to Judge Santiago Pedraz, instructor of the Leire Díez case at the National Court, the prosecutors state that the progress of the investigations has allowed them to obtain “new data” that “show” that the “criminal organization” has used people and companies as a front to “cover up” and “hide payments.” This circumstance, the public prosecutor adds, “now requires” the analysis of 81 bank accounts. Most are linked to Gaspar Zarrías, former vice president of the Andalusian Government, and lawyers Ismael Oliver and Jacobo Teijelo — identified as a supposed channel to send money to Leire Díez — but there are also six PSOE accounts. The objective is clear: “To determine the ultimate responsible party/parties, financier/s, of the activity carried out by Leire and the involvement, if any, of the other investigated individuals,” write the Anti-Corruption representatives.
This move comes as the parties are already looking to September, awaiting the case to be reactivated after the August break. Pedraz has scheduled the interrogation of Ana María Fuentes, PSOE manager charged with, according to the prosecutors, issuing “false invoices” to justify payments to third parties that were actually “intended for Leire Díez,” for September 9. It remains to be seen if this will escalate further. The PSOE is not currently charged in the case as a legal entity; however, the PP, which leads the popular accusation, has already targeted it. “I believe that technically and with the Penal Code in hand, it is very possible that the PSOE will end up charged. Among other things, how did it pay the expenses of the ‘cloacas’ that were attacking the honorability of prosecutors, judges, journalists, and the UCO? Why did it finance that?” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the Popular Party.
A double plan
On May 27, the National Court surprised with the indictment in a new line of investigation of Leire Díez; Santos Cerdán; Gaspar Zarrías; businessman Javier Pérez Dolset; and lawyers Ismael Oliver and Jacobo Teijelo. After receiving several reports from the Civil Guard and Anti-Corruption, Judge Pedraz concluded that there are indications that a plot was created to “protect themselves” and act “as an umbrella” against judicial cases “that could affect the Government and the PSOE.” The case file describes a double plan to sabotage those investigations: on one hand, contact with people who could provide compromising information about agents, judges, and prosecutors involved in the investigations that were intended to be “destabilized,” to thus “erode” their “credibility”; and on the other, an attempt to “promote” the opening of “internal investigations” within the armed institute to create a “climate” of intimidation among UCO officials.
Prosecutors Lamelas and Scharfhausen, as well as UCO agents, have so far placed the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE at the top. “A superior role is attributed to Santos Cerdán,” summarize the public prosecutor’s representatives in their July 21 report, where they emphasize that the number three of the socialists “commissioned” Leire Díez, in April 2024, with the “coordination and execution of a series of criminally relevant actions” to “systematically and continuously destabilize any judicial procedure or police action that could directly or indirectly impact the interests of the PSOE or the Government.” “And through Cerdán,” the public prosecutor elaborates, “the PSOE would have made its logistical and financial infrastructure available to the said group.”
The payments
The current party leadership has distanced itself from the plot and, in any case, limits any possible responsibility to Santos Cerdán. However, investigators do not rule out any possibility and insist on delving into the money trail: they want to verify its traceability and look for new suspicious payments. The reports from Anti-Corruption and the UCO already point to funds being “channeled” from the PSOE to Leire Díez. Among others, they mention four monthly payments of 4,000 euros to the socialist member through a company of Gaspar Zarrías; and the payment of another 27,225 euros through two “interposed companies” of lawyer Ismael Oliver.
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The prosecutors also point out that lawyer Teijelo issued and collected three invoices from the party amounting to 125,000 euros, “for services not provided and for which he had not been hired.” Anti-Corruption raises the hypothesis that part of that money could be for Leire Díez, since this lawyer, according to the prosecution’s theory, was to serve as a “vehicle” to continue paying 4,000 euros monthly to the member from the Secretariat of Organization, once Gaspar Zarrías “abandoned” that function after the first news about this alleged plot appeared in the press.
Sources close to Leire Díez deny that she has been paid by the PSOE through intermediaries. For his part, when testifying before Judge Pedraz in June, Jacobo Teijelo denied irregularities and any payment to the socialist, and stated that the party hired him to study the viability of several judicial processes. “They are persecuting the lawyers who defend the PSOE,” the lawyer retorted.
But his explanations have not dispelled the prosecutors’ suspicions. “The PSOE, at the court’s request, maintains that it did not hire Teijelo and that he has never performed any professional advisory work for the PSOE,” emphasize Lamelas and Scharfhausen. In fact, in a burofax sent to the lawyer in July 2025 by the party, rejecting payment of two other invoices amounting to 53,000 euros, Ferraz stated the following: “We have no record of the services provided to this organization, their nature, content, or beneficiary.”
Anti-Corruption suspects that the plot also paid or tried to covertly cover the defenses of former minister José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García. In this regard, the prosecutors highlight that José Aníbal Álvarez, who acted as Ábalos’s lawyer for about a year, never charged and gave up his representation when Leire Díez “intended” to pay him the fee through a “company unknown to him.” “Certain messages from Leire with Santos Cerdán lead to the belief that payments were to be made through other professionals; it is even suspected that it could have been through Teijelo,” the public prosecutor concludes.
“There are other alleged economic operations committed by the plot,” the prosecutors add, emphasizing that also, according to the seized documentation, the group considered “a payment of up to 300,000 euros” to try to bribe a prosecutor; and “it was allegedly offered” to businesswoman Carmen Pano “the amount of 250,000 euros to change her testimony” in the Koldo case, where she stated that she had delivered bags with cash at Ferraz.
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