The report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard reveals that, between September and October 2021, Servinabar negotiated the purchase of a luxury home in Madrid, on Santa Cruz de Marcenado street, for the use of the then former socialist leader Santos Cerdán and his wife, Francisca Muñoz, for a price of 985,000 euros. It was the Basque businessman Antxon Alonso who negotiated the purchase and paid the deposit, of 9,000 euros, from a Servinabar account. The acquisition supposedly did not materialize due to disagreements over the delivery of the property, and the deposit was returned in January 2022. The same report also estimates the profits obtained by the former PSOE Organization Secretary and his family at more than 300,000 euros, in payments or goods, from Servinabar and other related companies, one of the key companies in the investigated network. According to the document, the calculation includes salaries, rent, and furniture of the former socialist leader’s home in Madrid, as well as vehicles. Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, has defended his innocence in the investigation commission of the so-called Koldo case in the Senate. The number two of the Armed Institute, charged with the crimes of malfeasance and obstruction of justice for his alleged involvement in the network allegedly led by Leire Díez to sabotage investigations against the Government and the president’s environment, has insisted that he does not intend to resign.
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The UCO asks the judge to gather banking information from four relatives of Cerdán to complete its investigation
The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard considers that the report on the assets of the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán is not yet complete and, therefore, asks for authorization to request data from five banking entities about the financial products opened in the name of four direct relatives of the former socialist leader. Specifically, the investigators request to gather banking information about his wife, Francisca Muñoz; his daughter, Alba Cerdán; his sister, María Belén Cerdán; and his brother-in-law, Antonio Muñoz. The agents consider that all of them could have “benefited” from funds coming from Servinabar, a key company in the network and of which Cerdán himself was allegedly a partner. The police document argues that the investigations have revealed “indications pointing to the possible existence of an undeclared alternative source of income” by the politician and that the “indications” already collected in a 2025 report have been “strengthened,” which pointed to the “alleged profit by Santos and his environment from third-party assets, and/or funds originating from the companies Servinabar, Erkolan, and Noran,” the latter related to businessman Antxon Alonso, a friend of the socialist leader.
Feijóo: “If Pedro Sánchez’s entire environment is corrupt, the rotten apple is him”
The PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has attacked the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, for the corruption cases in his political and personal environment and has held him responsible for all of them. “If Pedro Sánchez’s entire environment is corrupt, the rotten apple is him,” Feijóo emphasized at a rally in the Canary Islands held simultaneously with the release of the latest report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) on Santos Cerdán’s assets. “If Pedro Sánchez was not able to smell corruption in the seat next to his car, in the Council of Ministers, in the PSOE Federal Committee, or even in his own home, he is not capable of acting against it,” stressed the PP leader, who maintains that “corruption will end when Sánchez leaves.” Feijóo insisted that “all of Pedro Sánchez’s right-hand men are involved in scandals: Ábalos, Cerdán, and his first chief of staff.” He announced that if he comes to power, he will approve an “institutional cleaning plan” because “removing the Government will not be enough. A thorough cleaning will be necessary.”
The Civil Guard attributes a speeding fine to Santos Cerdán with a rental car
In the report, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard details the expenses that the Navarrese company Servinabar – of which Cerdán supposedly held 45% of the shares, something his defense denies – covered for Santos Cerdán. Among them, the investigators attribute to the former PSOE Organization Secretary a fine for driving at 139 km/h with a rented Kia Sportage, an infraction that would have been committed on February 18, 2017.
The fine was sent to Joseba Antxon Alonso Egurrola, owner of Servinabar 2000, but the Civil Guard believes that Santos Cerdán was the one who committed the infraction. According to the document, the businessman sent two WhatsApp messages to Koldo García, advisor to former minister José Luis Ábalos, on April 28, 2017, containing photos of the traffic fine committed 10 minutes earlier on the A62 road passing through the municipality of Torquemada (Palencia). However, the UCO detected a payment made with Santos Cerdán’s card at a gas station in a nearby town, Villaquirán de los Infantes (Burgos), on the same day.
According to the UCO, there are 37.6 kilometers between the two points, which would take 21 minutes to travel. The infraction was committed at 18:08 hours and the payment at the service station was made at 18:34 hours, that is, 26 minutes later, “a time frame compatible with Santos being in the vehicle and making the payment at the mentioned establishment,” concludes the report.
Servinabar tried to buy a flat in Madrid valued at nearly one million euros for Cerdán, according to the UCO
The report prepared by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on the assets of the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán reveals that, between September and October 2021, one of the key companies in the network negotiated the purchase of a luxury home in Madrid to be used by the then socialist leader and his wife, Francisca Muñoz.
The police document details that, in the earnest money contract to acquire the flat, located on Santa Cruz de Marcenado street, a price of 985,000 euros was set, of which 9,000 had to be delivered as a deposit, 180,000 at the signing of the contract, and the rest at the deed.
The investigators add that Cerdán personally visited the home with his wife and that it was the Basque businessman Antxon Alonso who negotiated the purchase and paid the deposit from a Servinabar account. Finally, the acquisition supposedly did not materialize due to disagreements over the delivery of the property. The 9,000-euro deposit was returned to Servinabar in January 2022.
The UCO estimates the profits obtained by Cerdán and his family from the network at more than 300,000 euros
The report prepared by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on the finances of the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán estimates the profits he and his family obtained, either in payments or goods, from one of the key companies in the network, Servinabar, and other related companies at more than 300,000 euros. The calculation includes both salaries for jobs and payments, as well as rent payments and furniture of the former socialist leader’s home in Madrid, as well as vehicles. The police document also points out that Servinabar, a company in which Cerdán himself was allegedly a partner, tried to buy a flat worth 985,000 euros for him and his wife. The purchase did not materialize.
The PSOE accuses the right of turning the DAO of the Civil Guard’s appearance into a “witches’ sabbath”
María del Lirio Martín, from the PSOE, has accused the PP in the Senate appearance of Manuel Llamas, Lieutenant General and Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, of playing a “dangerous game” by “feeding extremist narratives, where the aim is to politicize police actions and the actions of the Civil Guard.”
“The Civil Guard, like the National Police, are not instruments of any political party, no matter how much the PP and Vox have tried. They are institutions of all Spaniards,” said the senator, who was the only one not to ask any questions to the number two of the Armed Institute.
The socialist spokesperson accused the right-wing parties of turning the DAO’s appearance into a “witches’ sabbath” and denounced the PP’s “partisan use” of the investigation commission. “What should be a useful tool for parliamentary control and the clarification of matters of general interest has become a political tool of bad politics, disastrous politics, and incompetence,” she concluded.
The number two of the Civil Guard launches veiled criticisms at generals Rafael Yuste and Alfonso López Malo
Manuel Llamas, Lieutenant General and Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, has criticized the generals of the Armed Institute Rafael Yuste and Alfonso López Malo, both former heads of the Central Operative Unit (UCO), who have denied, contrary to what Mercedes González assured in the Upper House, that they informed her of their meetings with former socialist member Leire Díez. “If I demand a certain coherence from my subordinates, it is by example,” said the number two of the Armed Institute, who also spoke of “excessive protagonism” and “excessive vanity.”
As he did this Thursday before Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court, Llamas insisted that he did not ask the UCO commanders to “turn a blind eye” in investigations affecting the Government and the PSOE. “I do not recognize myself in that expression,” he concluded before reiterating that he does not intend to resign as demanded by Senator Marimar Caballero of UPN and Ángel Pelayo Gordillo of Vox. “Absolutely not. Categorically not. I have no reason to resign,” he responded to the far-right senator.
The DAO of the Civil Guard insists on his innocence in the Senate and assures he will not resign
Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, has defended his innocence in the investigation commission of the so-called Koldo case in the Senate. The number two of the Armed Institute, charged with the crimes of malfeasance and obstruction of justice for his alleged involvement in the network allegedly led by Leire Díez to sabotage investigations against the Government and the president’s environment, has insisted that he does not intend to resign. Furthermore, he has stated that he has the explicit support of the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska: “The minister considers my situation unfair.”
“I have not offered my resignation to either the minister or the director [Mercedes González, who testifies today at the National Court]. I do it because of my innocence; if I resign, I become retired and would not have the possibility to return to the position. But I do it because I am innocent,” he said in the Upper House, where he denied knowing the former PSOE member.
Junqueras demands the Supreme Court apply the amnesty “without delay” after the ECJ endorsement
For the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, “the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union is not enough, because now it is up to the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty without delay.” Junqueras spoke this way a day after the ECJ broadly endorsed the amnesty law regarding its compatibility with European Union law.
“We should have been amnestied more than two years ago. We should be able to do politics in full freedom and on equal terms. We should have been rehabilitated and, despite that, the Supreme Court has maintained the sentence. It does not happen in any country in the world that there are sentences when there are no crimes,” he argued. The republican leader added that “it is urgent that, after almost ten years, we definitively close this chapter. We do not want to talk only about repression; we want to talk about rights, democracy, and the management of Rodalies.”
Mercedes González, arriving this Friday at the National Court. / SAMUEL SÁNCHEZ
The director of the Civil Guard arrives at the National Court to testify
The director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, has already arrived at the National Court to testify as a defendant in the Leire case after Judge Santiago Pedraz postponed her interrogation from this Thursday.
Junqueras: “We find it frivolous to flirt with a motion of no confidence ignoring what Vox and the PP represent”
The ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, said this Friday at an informative breakfast in Madrid that corruption “is systemic” and “is deteriorating the perception of the Government of President Sánchez and the PSOE.” “In this sense, the PSOE has disappointed us. It has been unable to definitively resolve the corruption cases that always end up affecting it,” he said and added that it has also “betrayed the trust” of the investiture partners.
Still, Junqueras qualified that ERC “will act responsibly in this final stretch of the Spanish legislature” since they find it “frivolous to flirt with a motion of no confidence ignoring what Vox and the PP represent.”
Bolaños considers the instruction by Judge Peinado against Begoña Gómez “very unusual”
The Minister of the Presidency, Justice, and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, considers that the instruction by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado against the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez, is “very unusual.” The minister recalled that the Madrid Provincial Court has overturned Judge Peinado’s decisions 16 times and assured that the magistrate has “strained the system’s seams.”
Bolaños insisted that the initial complaint against Begoña Gómez, filed by a far-right organization, “should have been dismissed on the first day” and defended that, when the whole set of evidence is evaluated, it will be proven that “there is nothing at all.” “I think it is a case that is falling apart along the way,” he added in an interview on Cadena Ser.
Puente encourages Puigdemont to return to Spain after the ECJ ruling: “It would be a gesture of political leadership”
The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, has encouraged the former president Carles Puigdemont to return to Spain after the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the amnesty. “If I were Mr. Puigdemont, I would stand in Spain today without any doubt. I think that would also be a gesture of political leadership on his part,” he said in an interview on RNE where he said he believes in justice because “in the Spanish judicial dynamic there is an immense majority of magistrates and rulings that are lawful and respond to a purely legal or judicial dynamic,” but, at the same time, there is “a minority with enormous public and political significance with whom it is mandatory to be critical because they do not respond to a purely judicial dynamic, but to an intentionality.”
In this sense, he used irony to comment on the coincidence of the ECJ decision and the Madrid Court’s resolution on the appeals filed by Begoña Gómez: “Yesterday the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling that had been awaited for a long time, even with a fixed date for the judgment for a long time and, coincidentally, one hour later, we had the news that Begoña will sit on the bench in a jury court. Of course, this is a coincidence, it is not intentional.” “Generally, when these kinds of coincidences occur, which is almost always, we should not think badly, we should not be suspicious, and, well, it is the normality in which this country has lived for some time,” he joked.
Puente indicated that he believes the transition pact has been broken and that “it was broken by the right, which does not respect the rules of democratic play” and that “considers that power belongs to it by nature.” “When I say that the right does not respect, I do not refer exclusively to the Popular Party and Vox, I refer to the political right, the media right, the economic right, and the judicial right. That is, they do not respect what the polls mandate and are willing to do whatever it takes to reverse the election results,” he assured.
Bolaños, on the amnesty for procés leaders: “If you want these people to go to prison, what you are looking for is revenge”
The Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, has welcomed the endorsement by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) of the amnesty law and hopes it will be applied “as soon as possible” to the political leaders of the procés. Bolaños defended that those who asked for imprisonment are seeking “revenge.” “The conviction the Government of Spain had at all times is that the solution to the conflict in Catalonia was not to imprison the people who participated in the independence process. Does anyone really believe that if the 400-plus people who will benefit from the amnesty law had been imprisoned, the situation in Catalonia would be better?” he asked in an interview on Cadena Ser.
“I think it would be positive for everyone, especially for Catalan society and Spanish society as a whole, that this is resolved as soon as possible,” added the minister.
‘Leire Díez case’
The Civil Guard’s operational chief denies pressure on the UCO and denounces a campaign against him
Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, number two of the Civil Guard in his capacity as Deputy Operational Director (DAO), denied this Thursday before Judge Santiago Pedraz, instructor of the so-called Leire Díez case, that he pressured the agents of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) or asked them to “turn a blind eye” in investigations affecting the PSOE, the Government, and Pedro Sánchez’s environment, as generals Rafael Yuste and Alfonso López Malo had previously declared. According to sources present at the interrogation, the high-ranking officer stated that he does not recognize himself in that expression and clarified that he has repeatedly stated in meetings with heads of investigation groups, not only of the UCO, that agents should not assume protagonism but leave the leadership of the investigations to the judges.
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Good morning. The director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, returns to the National Court to testify as a defendant in the Leire case after Judge Santiago Pedraz postponed her interrogation after she appeared this Thursday to testify alongside her number two, the Deputy Operational Director (DAO), Manuel Llamas, whose appearance lasted two and a half hours, which caused hers to be postponed. González’s testimony as a defendant this Friday will coincide with that of her number two in the Senate, where he has been called to testify at the request of the PP to clarify the opening of proceedings against members of the UCO involved in investigations affecting the Government and Pedro Sánchez’s environment and which has led to both being charged in the Leire case. Mercedes González already appeared before this same chamber for these facts on June 16, when she acknowledged having had three meetings with former socialist member Leire Díez, although she qualified that they were to have coffee and talk about trivial matters.
