Sewers and plumbers. Two terms perhaps not so unfamiliar to politics, but until a few years ago were unknown to most citizens. Their function requires it. Their protagonists move in the shadows, scratching scraps of information that may be useful for the partisan interests they defend. They work in a gray area, but sometimes cross the red line and trigger the alarms of Justice, as happened with the alleged maneuvers of the PP to sabotage judicial investigations into Gürtel and the so-called Bárcenas papers, which were exposed with Operation Kitchen, currently on trial. Now, new judicial investigations point to the existence of another plot, this time linked to the PSOE, with the same objective: to disrupt the judicial cases affecting the party and Government environment. And what has been investigated so far reveals an unexpected plumbing connection: Leire Díez’s plumber team approached those of the popular plot and others involved in corruption cases. The sewers feed each other.
The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz launched an operation this Wednesday that included sending the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard to the PSOE headquarters, on Ferraz street in Madrid, for an information request, under threat of search, which lasted more than twelve hours. One of the agents’ tasks was to know the details of visits since 2021 to find out if certain people went to the socialists’ headquarters in the years Díez and her team operated. The list includes names of all kinds.
The group led by Díez in 2021, following a WhatsApp chat, and which, according to Pedraz, was taken over in 2024 by Santos Cerdán, then PSOE’s Secretary of Organization, contacted profiles of all kinds ―from prosecutors, who denounced those approaches, to convicts―. The objective indicated by the order was to obtain data capable of “systematically and continuously destabilizing any judicial procedure or police action” that could somehow impact the PSOE or the Government. These movements occurred in the context of the outbreak of the Koldo case and the indictment by judge Juan Carlos Peinado of the wife of the Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez.
The plot sought commissioner Villarejo
The judicial account indicates that the plot sought retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, protagonist of his own macro-case, with about thirty separate pieces investigating the multiple and diverse investigative works he would have carried out from his business group, using police resources at his disposal, for clients ranging from Ibex companies to individuals. Among those assignments stands out Operation Kitchen which, according to the facts now on trial, was set up in 2015 from Jorge Fernández Díaz’s Ministry of the Interior to steal from the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas and his family sensitive information they might have about the PP and its leaders, when Justice was investigating the existence of a slush fund, which was eventually confirmed. Pedraz indicates that Díez and her team tried “to use supposed information that Villarejo would have about other judges, prosecutors, politicians, and police chiefs unknown until now.”
Among the “targets of interest” of the alleged plot was also Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security under Fernández Díaz, alongside whom he sits on the bench for spying on the Bárcenas, supposedly being the person to whom the police involved in Operation Kitchen reported their progress. Pedraz reflects that the former socialist member met several times with Martínez. “The PSOE puts me in charge,” she told him.
She explained that she played a discreet role, but that everything she provided would be passed on to those who had entrusted her with that mission, detailing that they were “on Ferraz street communicating with the Moncloa Palace.” “Because, as you well know, the party from Ferraz governs,” she added. In statements to EL PAÍS, the former Secretary of State denied going to Ferraz for those meetings but did acknowledge in an interview that he met twice with Díez in another setting, a law office. According to him, she presented herself as an emissary of the “PSOE leadership” and suggested an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office in exchange for “compromising information about operations that had been carried out in the past and had harmed” the party.
To the rescue of a former Venezuelan deputy minister
Among the people contacted by Díez is another politician: Nervis Villalobos, former Deputy Minister of Energy in Hugo Chávez’s Government. Pointed out by the US Justice as one of those responsible for embezzlement in Venezuela’s state oil company (PDVSA), in Spain the National Court investigated him for alleged money laundering of part of those funds through the purchase of a luxury chalet in Madrid, although the investigations ended archived. That same court has sent him to trial for the Duro Felguera case. Investigators maintain that the Asturian company paid bribes in exchange for building a thermoelectric plant to supply Greater Caracas. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office asks for more than 8 years in prison considering he was one of the bought officials. In his case, he would have received 105 million dollars. The project was valued at 1.5 billion.
Those two cases and others affecting Catalan independence, such as the 3% and those derived from Los Pujol, had José Grinda as prosecutor, one of the enemies to beat by the alleged plot. This common interest would have motivated the collaboration of the Venezuelan politician and his lawyer, Ismael Oliver, with Díez’s group. According to Pedraz, they tried to “condition” Grinda’s actions using a woman with whom he had an open lawsuit and talked about offering him 300,000 euros to archive the cases arguing they had been “a consequence of abusive actions.” The anti-corruption prosecutor’s environment has denied to Cadena SER that they offered him money, but he did denounce that a journalist who said he spoke on behalf of “high institutions” and referred to “Leire” offered him another bribe ―a golden destination abroad― in exchange for closing his cases and compromising information about his boss, Alejandro Luzón.
Also, Villalobos intended to obtain Spanish nationality and solve a problem with his bank accounts in Spain, thanks to Díez’s “contacts.” He even wanted an interview with the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá. The judicial ruling states that Díez made arrangements to help Villalobos. Oliver, who would have thus entered the criminal organization but later acquired a more relevant role, would have used his companies to channel payments ordered by Cerdán with PSOE funds to compensate Díez for her work. Specifically, the order detects a payment of almost 30,000 euros through this route.
Other targets of interest, according to Pedraz, were businessman Alejandro Hamlyn, then investigated and already convicted for a multimillion fraud in the hydrocarbons sector; Sandro Rosell, former Barça president who spent almost two years in prison accused of laundering commissions for broadcasting friendly matches of the Brazilian national football team, but was acquitted; or Civil Guards Juan Sánchez Yepes and Rubén Villalba, investigated in the Gaslow and Koldo cases, respectively.