First trial against Ábalos, Koldo, and Aldama for the mask scheme, live | Aldama tries to involve Sánchez without evidence: “In the hierarchy, he was number one”

The PSOE accuses Aldama of lying for two years to try to link Sánchez to the mask scheme

The Socialist Party has accused Víctor de Aldama of recurrently lying over the past two years after trying to involve Pedro Sánchez in the mask scheme today at the Supreme Court without providing any proof, lie after lie. “We are facing a known strategy in his right of defense. Deception is his main tool, pointing fingers without evidence and creating noise where there are no crimes,” the socialists state in a communiqué.

The main government party explains that it already requested protection from the Supreme Court to act against what it calls “defamation.” “We will do it again,” the PSOE asserts. “We will not allow ourselves to be defamed with impunity. There is no illegal financing in the PSOE, only Aldama’s lies,” insists the PSOE, which reiterates its “maximum cooperation” with justice and “absolute willingness” to clarify any doubt that undermines its image. Ferraz concludes that it has acted with zero tolerance, transparency, and strong measures in an implicit reference to José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, and also by extension against Santos Cerdán, involved in another offshoot of the alleged corrupt scheme with Ábalos and García.

“I wish all parties did the same,” the PSOE is emphatic. “We do not accept lessons from those who have had slush funds, extra salaries, or final corruption sentences,” it concludes, alluding to the Popular Party.

Aldama estimates between three and four million the total money delivered to Ábalos and Koldo

Aldama has quantified between “three and a half and four million” the total money delivered to Ábalos and Koldo since the beginning of the scheme. He stated that the figure had already reached two million in 2020. This amount is much higher than the one indicated in the UCO report on the hydrocarbon scheme, which mentions one million euros to buy wills.

Aldama acknowledges he mediated for the Air Europa bailout, but that it was “legal” and the Hidalgos did not pay him commissions for Ábalos

Another key point of the trial is the intermediation of José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, and Víctor de Aldama in the Air Europa bailout. More specifically, a communication sent by Transport to the media in August 2020 which, according to the investigation, served to calm the company’s creditors. Koldo sent Aldama a draft of the note the day before its leak to the media. “We agreed on that note together,” the businessman defended, stating they even considered having Ábalos speak directly with some of the company’s creditors.

However, the businessman stated that they did not achieve what they wanted, which was an official statement affirming that the government was going to rescue the company. He did acknowledge that the communication leaked to the media helped calm things down, although he found it “insufficient” because it was only sent to economic media.

“It is a legal bailout,” Aldama emphasized, denying that the Hidalgos passed him commissions to expedite it. The businessman criticized the conditions under which it was given, as Javier Hidalgo, the former CEO of the airline’s parent company, did at the Supreme Court. “I have always said that there was a black hand in this operation,” the businessman said, referring to the intervention of Pedro Saura, then president of SEPI. The state’s industrial arm ended up giving a 475 million bailout that the airline paid. One of the conditions was to dissociate the Hidalgos from the company’s management, which ended up paying the bailout a year in advance.

Aldama says Soluciones de Gestión, the company that sold masks to Puertos del Estado, was the only company that bid for the contracts

Three and a half hours after Aldama’s testimony began, the mask case trial session enters the mask contracts. To explain it, the businessman went back to his relationship with Globalia, owner of Air Europa, and its then CEO, Javier Hidalgo. “The pandemic came, Javier Hidalgo had a sales contract with Iberia, and this contract fell apart.” Following this, they had a meeting at the ministry and, afterwards, Koldo García complained to Aldama that they had to manage the purchase of health supplies.

Here Soluciones de Gestión intervenes, the key company in the mask scheme. When the ministry asked Aldama for collaboration, he thought of Juan Carlos Cueto — whom the Tax Agency considers the true owner and leader of Soluciones de Gestión — and he responded that he could help. “There are no other companies nor are more companies accepted,” Aldama concluded. Initially, a purchase of four million was awarded, but the purchase order — executed by Puertos del Estado — was changed to double, eight million. This change is key for the accusations, which understand that Ábalos and Koldo, at Aldama’s request, mediated so that more was bought from the company.

For his advice, two of Aldama’s companies, Deluxe Fortune and MTM 180 Capital, each received 2,758,696.73 euros from Soluciones de Gestión, according to the Tax Agency. The Tax Agency considers that the businessman defrauded part of those amounts by not declaring them for personal income tax as they were personal services. Aldama has stated that this issue “is not part of this case.”

The Cádiz chalet where Ábalos vacationed was a bribe in exchange for a hydrocarbon license, according to Aldama

Aldama also recounted his involvement in obtaining a hydrocarbon license for the company Villafuel. In exchange for mediating to obtain this license, according to the accusation, the scheme made available to José Luis Ábalos the Alcaidesa, a chalet in Cádiz where the former minister vacationed. Aldama’s ex-partner, Leonor González Pano, and her mother, Carmen Pano, contacted him to mediate for the license, which businessman Claudio Rivas supposedly aspired to.

“I tell Leonor: ‘You have to buy a house’ and she says to me: ‘What are you telling me, Víctor,’” the businessman recounted. What they were going to do, always according to the middleman, was a lease with an option to buy in which Ábalos would be reimbursed in cash for the rent money.

The dismissal of the former Transport minister thwarted the operation. The company sent a burofax to Ábalos requesting the due rents: “This affects him because it could have been resolved since I still owed money to Ábalos and Koldo,” Aldama stated: “It was a heat of the moment.”

Aldama tries to involve Sánchez without evidence: “If there is a hierarchy in the criminal scheme, he was number one”

In his attempts to defend himself, Aldama has again insisted without providing evidence that the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was aware of the scheme. “One important thing,” he said without the prosecutor asking him about it. “There has been much talk about hierarchies, which I will not talk about, but there is one clear thing from the beginning that I would like to make clear. If there is a hierarchy in this case and I am in the organized criminal gang, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is at level one; Mr. Ábalos is level two, because he was the one who gave and granted; Mr. Koldo García, at three, and I, at four, because the president knew everything as it was transmitted to me and as he himself told me on the day of the theater,” Aldama said without being asked about it.

In fact, Aldama himself had declared shortly before that the moment when Sánchez supposedly told him “I know what you are doing” was prior to the irregularities being judged and investigated and that at that time he was only acting as an intermediary with Mexican authorities regarding infrastructure projects.

Aldama, who has publicly declared that his goal is to bring down the government and have Sánchez end up in jail, has stated that he deduced Sánchez was aware of the corrupt scheme because “Koldo treated the president as Pedro and not as president.” Also because he believes that when “Koldo called someone, people answered the phone, both ministers and advisors, not because they knew Mr. Ábalos was behind it (…) but because they knew he was a person of Pedro Sánchez,” he deduced. Sánchez is not being investigated in relation to the scheme as no evidence has appeared against him, despite Aldama claiming since 2024 that he would provide evidence against the president, which he has not done all this time.

Aldama confirms that the key term “coffee” referred to secure phone lines

The UCO defends that the scheme used the term “coffee” as a code word to refer to disposable phones they used to communicate securely. Víctor Aldama has confirmed this and recounted that the person who got him these secure lines was Civil Guard commander Rubén Villalba, also pointed out by the investigation. José Luis Ábalos’s son, Víctor, stated in his testimony before the Supreme Court that they referred to Colombian coffee and that he “does not know” how to speak in code.

Aldama says Koldo told him “the president was clear about what we were doing”

Víctor de Aldama has explained the payments he claims to have made to José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García: 10,000 euros monthly for “fixed expenses” of both and cash amounts supposedly paid by “construction companies” without identifying them in exchange for awards. “In the end, the 10,000 euros is a fixed amount, as you say, it is something I agreed with Koldo so that they, let’s say, are calm in their fixed monthly expenses and the other was money for them, which I do not get into what they did or did not do. They have always told me that part of that money went to the financing of the Socialist Party,” he recounted. Then, without the prosecutor asking him about it, he said he asked Koldo “if the president knew about this” and Koldo replied that “the president was clear and knew everything we did.” Aldama has declared several times that his goal is for the current government to lose power and for Pedro Sánchez to end up in jail, but so far he has not been able to provide evidence against him.

Recess until 12:30

The president of the court has decreed a recess until 12:30, when the trial will resume, still with the interrogation of Víctor de Aldama.

Aldama states they started paying through Koldo’s brother after a fight with the former advisor

Following a fight between Aldama and Koldo over Jésica Rodríguez’s apartment, the figure of Joseba, Koldo’s brother, appears, who became the one collecting the amounts. Joseba García testified in the early sessions of the trial that his meetings and contacts with Aldama were because he sold him a defective car. The businessman referred to those statements with sarcasm and clarified that he did not even sell it to him but gave it to him as a gift simulating a sale.

He also explained why Joseba García supposedly received cash amounts in the Dominican Republic on behalf of the scheme. There, the businessman said, they operated with companies that handled a lot of cash, and since Koldo García asked for cash payments, he told him to go to the Dominican Republic to get them.

Aldama says the scheme paid for Jésica Rodríguez’s apartment, Ábalos’s ex-partner, because they could no longer manage so much cash

Víctor Aldama has entered, almost two hours after starting his testimony, one of the fundamental objects of the trial: the apartment that the scheme supposedly paid to Jésica Rodríguez, Ábalos’s ex-partner, in Plaza de España, Madrid. The businessman recounted that, given the amounts of commissions they were handling and the request that part of that money not be in cash, the possibility of paying Rodríguez’s apartment was considered: “It was almost impossible to supply such important cash amounts for so many months.”

Since Aldama asked to be able to pay by transfers, Koldo offered to get him an apartment from a person the former minister “had met.” The businessman spoke with his partner Alberto Escolano, who also testified in the case and confirmed at the time that he was the one who made the apartment available and was paying for it. When asked by prosecutor Luzón why he did not pay for it himself, Aldama replied that “the relationship was extramarital” and that he did not want, if it got into the press, for one of his companies to be linked to Jésica Rodríguez or cause him a problem with his wife, with whom, he declared, he did not have as much “trust” as Escolano with his.

At a certain point, always according to Aldama’s account, and given the problems Rodríguez was causing, he asked Escolano to stop paying for the apartment “for pride reasons.” However, he clarified that “they could continue paying it,” because they still owed amounts. The decision to stop paying angered Koldo García a lot. The middleman recounted that “they even fought” in the office and he physically assaulted Koldo García to defend Escolano.

Aldama says he carried “bribes” in cash of up to 250,000 euros to the Ministry of Transport

Asked about cash payments, Aldama recalled that during a meeting Koldo told him about Ábalos’s “expenses,” which reached 10,000 euros monthly. Aldama claimed to have always delivered the money in envelopes unless the amounts were higher. “I carried a Mont Blanc backpack, entering through the back of the Ministry, without the Civil Guard saying anything to me. In this backpack, I carried the money. If I carried between 50,000 and 60,000 euros, I carried it in an envelope. If I carried higher amounts, up to 250,000 euros, I carried them in the backpack.” Aldama says the money came from “the construction companies” that had been awarded the contracts, although he did not give details of the money received, did not name any specific company, nor did the anti-corruption prosecutor ask him about it. On other occasions, he himself took amounts from companies.

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Aldama recounted that, the times he brought money to Ábalos, he was uncomfortable: “It was his way of showing that not all the money was for him or that he kept it.”

Aldama on payments to construction companies: “If I give, you have to give me”

Aldama recounted how it came “to the point” of starting to “give money” to José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García. “A series of expenses were put on the table. I don’t know the exact moment, but we already had trust. He told me many times that they needed financing for the party.” The businessman stated that when he was asked that the payments supposedly made by construction companies in exchange for licenses had to be in cash, he understood his role: “If I give, you have to give me.” Initially, he said, he only sought “notoriety.”

Getting into the matter, the businessman declared that the apartment on the Castellana, he said, was “a guarantee” for Ábalos’s “peace of mind,” and that the 10,000 he supposedly paid the former minister in exchange for favors came from a list of expenses Koldo García gave him (“the ex-wife, the children, the school, mine…”). “From 2019 to the end of 2022, I have delivered many times cash amounts to them,” he concluded. The money, he reiterated, mainly came from the construction companies he mediated with.

Aldama says he gave Koldo a motorcycle and a car and paid for a fertility treatment

Businessman Víctor de Aldama has said that he, through one of his companies, gave Koldo García, former advisor to José Luis Ábalos, a vehicle, “a small SUV,” as well as paying for a fertility treatment for his partner. He said that before starting to deliver money for party financing, he began “sowing” by doing favors to gain Koldo and Ábalos’s trust. First, it was the fertility treatment, which Koldo asked for because “his partner had problems getting pregnant.” “On another occasion, well, a motorcycle was bought for him,” a 250 cc scooter. Later, he said, “a vehicle was given to him, an SUV, but the cheap, small ones.” I gave it to him, probably paying with one of my companies,” he stated.

Aldama elaborates on matters outside the scope of the procedure

Businessman Víctor de Aldama is elaborating, with the court’s permission and without interruptions from prosecutor Luzón, on all kinds of dealings he carried out at the request of José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García. “All kinds of favors to gain their trust,” he emphasized. This ranges from Venezuela to Mexico, including his mediation for awarding public contracts to construction companies in exchange for money for PSOE financing. Only at this point did the former Transport advisor’s lawyer raise her voice and protested as these are matters outside what is being judged now at the Supreme Court. The court president did not admit the protest.

Aldama states he mediated for Spain to recognize Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela

Aldama said his relationship with Venezuela was even better than with Mexico and that he had contact with Delcy Rodríguez, then vice president and now acting president of the country. The businessman recounted that, at Ábalos’s request, he met at the beginning of 2019 with Juan Guaidó, a candidate in the Venezuelan elections whom Spain recognized in February 2019 as “interim president.” Guaidó asked him, always according to the middleman’s account, to convey to the government the importance of Spain recognizing him as president. This happened a few days later, he recounted. His mediation also dealt with oil quotas.

Aldama said Decly Rodríguez called him to ask why Spain was supporting Guaidó as interim president: “I told her I had nothing to do with it. It is something they are sending me.” Some time later, he recounted, Koldo told him they were going to take a turn and “renounce” Guaidó.

María Jesús Montero: “Aldama has it in for me”

The PSOE candidate for the presidency of Andalusia, María Jesús Montero, has shown herself “absolutely calm” before Víctor Aldama’s testimony before the Supreme Court in the mask case. “He has it in for me,” said the former first vice president and finance minister in an interview on ‘Espejo Público’.

The businessman, leader of the corrupt scheme, accused Montero’s former chief of staff, Carlos Moreno, of being one of the high-ranking officials to whom, according to him, he paid a commission in exchange for favors. Moreno denied before the Supreme Court having received 25,000 euros for doing a favor, although he admitted that the businessman consulted him about the postponement of a debt of one of his companies and he passed that request to a ministry advisor.

“This person is following a very clear defense strategy, which is to try to accuse others who have nothing to do with this matter to reach an agreement, to try to appear to collaborate when what he is doing is telling lies off-camera, on camera, and in courts. A person who has been in jail and, moreover, has been in jail for something as important as a tax inspection. He has it in for me and this means he considers me responsible for being in jail,” said the secretary general of the Andalusian PSOE.

Aldama recounts that Koldo proposed cash payments from construction companies to finance the party

Back from his trip to Mexico, Aldama says Koldo told him he needed a trusted person to talk to some companies working for the Ministry. According to his testimony, Koldo told him: “We are going to introduce you to construction companies that already work for the Ministry and we have to see how we can help each other so they continue in the bidding and obtain a return that we need for party financing.” Aldama asked who would invoice those payments, to which Koldo replied that there would be no invoices and that the companies had to pay in cash. At that moment, Aldama claims he understood that something illegal was being done: “I did not feel comfortable, but not uncomfortable either. I am a businessman.”

The businessman’s testimony provokes angry reactions in Ábalos and Koldo

Víctor de Aldama’s words are provoking continuous and angry reactions in José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, ranging from surprised faces to ironic laughter. The most expressive is the former Transport advisor, who on several occasions has opened his arms in surprise and indignation. Aldama referred to him as a person very willing “to help.”

Aldama confirms the payment for the “ladies” in the trial for the ‘Koldo case’

Aldama recounted that, on an official ministry trip to Mexico — where José Luis Ábalos met with his Mexican counterpart — Koldo García told him they had to find “some ladies” for “the boss.” The businessman stated that he paid for prostitutes’ services for the former minister for the first and only time on that trip.

Aldama in the trial on Koldo’s relationship with the president

Víctor de Aldama narrated how he met Pedro Sánchez at the famous rally in Madrid from which a photo of both was published, which he explained was taken by Koldo García. The middleman of the scheme said that in one of his meetings with Koldo in February, he told him he was going to take him to meet the president, at a rally on a Sunday. Aldama said he did not feel like “enduring four hours of rally,” but Koldo insisted saying there would be “important people, it would be an opportunity.”

Once there, after the event, he claims he was introduced to Sánchez and that he thanked him for his work. “Thank you for everything, I know what you are doing and thank you,” Aldama said the president told him. The brief encounter took place in the early stages of the relationship with Aldama and before the irregularities that the businessman has confessed during the investigation began. Aldama places that phrase at a moment prior to the start of the irregularities being investigated and when he was helping to contact Mexican authorities regarding infrastructure projects.

The middleman said he was struck by Koldo’s familiarity with Sánchez, who called him Pedro and not president. His response was: “The day he tells me to call him president, I leave the party. He owes me a lot and he knows why.”

Aldama recounts that Koldo provided him information to buy SEPI assets

To the great surprise of the former Transport advisor, Aldama said that in November 2018, Koldo García called Víctor de Aldama to tell him that the Treasury was going to put SEPI assets up for sale and asked if he was interested. Aldama thanked him for the information and submitted an offer with one of his companies for Campo Velázquez, a property located between Velázquez and María de Molina streets in Madrid, composed of six buildings.

Koldo and Ábalos approached Aldama because of his relationship with Mexico and the PRI political party

In his account, Aldama said that Koldo García first, and later José Luis Ábalos, approached him because of his relations in Mexico and more specifically with the PRI political party. In the first meetings with the minister’s advisor, they discussed projects like the Tren Maya or the Oaxaca airport. At that time, the governor of the Mexican state was Alejandro Murat, whom Aldama connected with the Ministry of Transport.

Aldama narrates how his relationship with Koldo began

The prosecutor begins the interrogation of Víctor de Aldama by asking about his relationship with José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García. He recounted that he met Koldo when he arrived at the ministry and was interested in the people working there, including Rubén, Aldama’s brother, who was the previous minister’s bodyguard. Later, he met him personally when Koldo entered a café where Aldama was having breakfast with his brother. Later, they met in the same café and Koldo was interested in Aldama’s relations in Latin America.

The trial begins with the testimony of Víctor de Aldama

Businessman Víctor de Aldama faces the trial in a more comfortable position than his two co-defendants. He is the only one of the three who is free and faces a maximum prison request of seven years, compared to the 24 requested by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor for former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and the 19 and a half requested for his former advisor Koldo García. The middleman has benefited from a sentence reduction for collaborating with justice but still has a lot at stake.

The mask contracts being judged at the Supreme Court are, according to the UCO lieutenant colonel, what Aldama pursued by paying 10,000 euros monthly to the then minister and his advisor. What the businessman intended and, according to the accusations, achieved, was to buy the minister’s will. Investigators estimate the profits obtained solely from mask sales to Transport exceed six million euros.

Feijóo tells Sánchez he deserves to be sitting on the bench where Ábalos is

The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and Alberto Núñez Feijóo clashed this Wednesday in a debate about public healthcare peppered with accusations from the PP leader to the head of government that led him to say he deserves to be sitting on the bench where José Luis Ábalos is.

Sánchez and Feijóo faced off in Congress, with the PP leader starting by calling the images of the PSOE Federal Committee of 2016 “hair-raising” due to the “alleged rigging” that occurred and which he said was the prelude to the entire political career of the head of government. Since then, he emphasized, he has not stopped losing elections, governs without a majority and without budgets, and has no respect for democracy.

Additionally, he highlighted that two “milestones” coincide on this day, the first being that former minister José Luis Ábalos is sitting on the bench. “The trial of Ábalos is a trial of his government. Just for that,” he added, “you deserve to be sitting there.” (Efe)

‘KOLDO CASE’

The “late accuser” takes the floor: Aldama testifies before Ábalos and Koldo at the Supreme Court

After 10 trial sessions, more than 70 witnesses, and endless disputes between the defenses, the accusations, and the court, this Wednesday comes the turn for the interrogations of José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, and Víctor de Aldama, the three accused of the alleged corrupt scheme around the Ministry of Transport being judged at the Supreme Court. At the request of the former minister and his former advisor, the court has decided that the businessman will be the first to testify, and he will do so this Wednesday starting at 10:00. Afterwards, and in this order, García and Ábalos will testify, who have their most aggressive accuser sitting on the same bench, so beyond the narrative built throughout the oral hearing, in which they come out quite badly, the former minister and his assistant will have to defend themselves against the accusations Aldama has attributed to them in his own testimony.

You can read the full information here

Good morning. We start the live narration of the latest news of the trial at the Supreme Court for the mask scheme, this Wednesday, April 29. Today the accused begin to testify: former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García, and businessman Víctor de Aldama, who will be the first to speak. Afterwards, and in this order, García and Ábalos will testify. The court’s intention is for all three accused to testify, but Aldama’s testimony could extend almost the entire day.

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