Santiago Pedraz, investigating judge of the National Court, maintains that there are indications that payments were made from the PSOE (or its environment) to the former socialist member Leire Díez and others investigated for a plot dedicated to disrupting judicial proceedings after the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced he would take a few days of reflection following the indictment of his wife, Begoña Gómez, for alleged influence peddling. According to Pedraz in his resolution of the Leire case, to which EL PAÍS had access, these payments were allegedly made under the leadership of Santos Cerdán, former Secretary of Organization of the party, to whom he attributes the “unity of action and direction” of the alleged corruption network now under scrutiny.
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The investigators place Díez under Cerdán’s orders after finding messages from her, such as: “We already have a strategy […] we have been working on it for months”; or “I’m urgently going to Madrid.” “Santos sent me. We have information that would help the president,” she said on April 24, 2024. According to the judge, there are indications that Díez received 4,000 euros monthly — in four payments — through the consultancy of the former vice president of the Andalusian Government Gaspar Zarrías and was part of a “structure” “coordinated” to “systematically obstruct any judicial proceeding that could directly or indirectly impact the interests of the government or the PSOE.”
Pedraz points to this payment and others. Legal sources state that there is not yet a total calculation of the disbursements under suspicion. They emphasize that it will depend on the information obtained from the requests made to the party this Wednesday. However, throughout 50 pages, the judge refers to several alleged payments: the mentioned 16,000 euros to Díez through Zarrías; 27,225 euros from the PSOE to a company managed by lawyer Ismael Oliver, but which allegedly ended up in Díez’s hands through another company; and 125,000 euros from Ferraz to lawyer Jacobo Teijelo, responsible for Cerdán’s defense in the case related to the alleged rigging of public works contracts.
The judge also mentions in his resolution 20,000 euros that “the party would have sent” to the late journalist Patricia López. In the framework of the investigation opened in the courts of Madrid due to the first audios implicating Díez in alleged irregularities, Santos Cerdán stated that it was this reporter who introduced him to the former socialist member.
Apart from these disbursements, Pedraz records other payments that allegedly did not materialize. According to the investigation, the plot made at least one direct offer to businesswoman Carmen Pano, a woman indicted in the hydrocarbons case, who has repeatedly stated in court that she took cash to Ferraz. According to the order, they proposed 50,000 euros for her to change her version. Similarly, the resolution states that the investigated considered paying 30,000 euros to José Grinda, Anti-Corruption prosecutor, to request the dismissal of investigations affecting Nervis Villalobos, former Venezuelan Deputy Minister of Energy. This prosecutor reported the bribery attempt.
It all supposedly started in 2024. The judge explains that the actions now under investigation began to develop in the early months of that year. By then Díez and Cerdán “not only maintained a prior relationship, but both were already part” of an “organized group” whose objective was to collect commissions through “guiding administrative procedures.” With that starting point — and after the indictment of the Prime Minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez, as well as Pedro Sánchez’s sending of the “letter to the citizens” — Cerdán allegedly organized a meeting at the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street. It was then when, according to the resolution, Leire Díez told the former SEPI vice president Vicente Fernández that she would travel to the capital “urgently” because she had been summoned by the former Secretary of Organization.
According to the investigations, Cerdán, Díez, businessman Javier Pérez Dolset; the former chief of staff of Sánchez in the PSOE before arriving at La Moncloa, Juan Manuel Serrano; and then PSOE communications director, Ion Antolín, participated in that meeting. “That meeting is considered a turning point regarding the investigated activity,” says the judge. There, allegedly, they conspired to “develop a series of actions whose aim was the destabilization of these judicial cases affecting the PSOE or the Government.”
The agents of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard found in Leire Díez’s notes one that said: “We try to contact the PSOE for two years and only when Begoña’s case happens does someone receive us.” They also found messages in which the former socialist member spoke of “destroying the procedure” against the Prime Minister’s brother that is ongoing in a court in Badajoz. “Everything is perfectly coordinated,” Díez even said.
Beyond that first meeting, the agents quantify at least another 22 at Ferraz between Cerdán and Díez (in addition to another 17 in other locations), which served as “coordination” and “accountability.” The last one, they assert, took place on May 21, 2025. Pedraz maintains that the former socialist deputy made the party’s own “structure” available to the “criminal structure,” which from the beginning “bore the cost of the investigated activity.” Thus, he assures that there are “serious incriminating indications” showing that, through Cerdán and charged to the party, the activity of the alleged plot would have been sustained, “both from the point of view of its financing and various logistical matters.”
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Expenses under suspicion
The judge also points out alleged irregularities in the management of payments within the party. He describes episodes such as a PSOE employee sending Díez the flight reservation to return to her usual residence. For the magistrate, this shows that the political party bore these types of costs. But, according to the instructor, they not only paid for her trips, but since May 2024 the former member states that Cerdán wants to cover her work expenses: “I was thinking that what Santos wants to pay me could be done directly through Andalukadi, right? […] I don’t know if I like that they do it through Gaspar’s office.” Zarrías’s company even hired Díez through his consultancy (Zaño Sociedad Consultora) on June 26, 2024. She received, according to the order, four payments of 4,000 euros.
After these payments ceased, the judge says a “second procedure” was articulated. In this case, the intermediation of two companies managed by lawyer Ismael Oliver was allegedly used. The party manager Ana Fuentes, who has also been indicted, allegedly falsified an engagement note for 27,225 euros for Oliver’s firm, who allegedly paid Díez that amount through another company he owns. The investigators suspect that the money that left the PSOE accounts ended up in the hands of the investigated, who allegedly integrated into that “criminal organization.” Another example Pedraz cites is a payment of 125,000 euros to lawyer Jacobo Teijelo. For this disbursement, he also points to the party manager, whom he mentions “as the author of the possible crime of forgery in commercial documents for issuing false invoices,” as well as a possible “accomplice” of the other crimes.
References to the Prime Minister
Within the resolution, Pedraz transcribes messages from Leire Díez that refer to Pedro Sánchez. He highlights a conversation on April 29, 2024, when the former member tells Vicente Fernández: “The Prime Minister is referring to everything we are doing.”
According to the magistrate, the maneuvers regarding the hydrocarbons cases were considered a “priority line” of the organization, “as evidenced by numerous elements, among which stands out that, in Leire’s words, this line would have been Santos Cerdán’s priority ‘by order of the one.”
In search of emails, agendas, and expenses
Following the indications gathered in the investigation, Pedraz demands from the PSOE “all available information” regarding Cerdán’s “institutional agenda,” including documents, files, or agendas relevant to the case that may have been “managed by third parties within the party.” He also requests information about people who have had any secretarial or advisory relationship with the former socialist leader, as well as their email accounts and storage folders.
Additionally, he demands information about “the procedure the party has established for the payment of expenses of an institutional nature, such as meals, taxi rides, or others of a similar nature.” The judge asks the PSOE what method it uses to “audit or justify these expenses” and how the data of these expenses are recorded. Likewise, he requests Ferraz to provide expenses of this type made by Cerdán, Díez, and Pérez-Dolset between 2024 and 2025.
The judge also requires the party “a list of email addresses” of the PSOE’s “corporate accounts” associated with Cerdán; manager Ana María Fuentes; Covadonga San Pedro, an employee with administrative functions in the party; Celia Rodríguez, worker of the Organization Secretariat; Ion Antolín, former PSOE Communications Director; and email addresses “associated with the Management.” In Cerdán’s case, he requests the emails from 2021 to the “present,” while for the others he is only interested in those registered since 2024. Thus, he orders the UCO the “complete dump” of the content of these mailboxes, including read or unread messages, active, inactive, or disabled accounts.
Similarly, Pedraz demands from Ferraz “detailed” information on the network storage associated with the PSOE accessible to all its workers. He also asks the party to provide a report on the people who have been responsible for the PSOE’s IT structure since 2024.
