The Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid has dismissed the complaint filed last December against three leaders of Revuelta, Vox’s youth brand, over suspicions of misappropriation of tens of thousands of euros in donations raised to help those affected by the DANA storm. The public prosecutor’s office in charge of economic crimes has concluded that the complaint filed “did not provide substantial data, was very generic” and has decided to dismiss it, as reported this Tuesday by elDiario.es and confirmed by judicial sources to this newspaper. The entity is known for having promoted protests for weeks in front of the PSOE’s federal headquarters on Madrid’s Ferraz street, between late 2023 and early 2024.
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Revuelta’s crisis began late last year, following the resignations of several board members, including the association’s vice-president, Arturo Villarroya; Board of Directors member Javier Esteban Bejarano, and former spokesperson Elsa Almada. A month earlier, the first two filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office “for alleged serious irregularities, possible fraud in the destination of funds and in the collection of membership fees without associated rights” against the organization’s president, Jaime Hernández Zúñiga, and his two trusted men, Santiago Aneiros and Pablo González Gasca.
The complainants stated that Revuelta raised “hundreds of thousands of euros” in solidarity donations with the claim of sending those funds to Valencia to mitigate the effects caused by the floods, but these “contributions were not allocated to the victims of the floods” as promised. “They have been deceived,” the document stated in reference to the donors. The accused have always denied the misappropriation of money and have maintained that the accusations were a pretext by Vox’s leadership to take control of Revuelta.
At the time the complaint was filed, Villarroya and Esteban Bejarano claimed that Revuelta had 105,000 euros in its bank accounts that had not yet been allocated to the DANA victims, despite more than a year having passed since the tragedy. Among other irregularities, the document stated, the organization did not comply with its tax obligations for the sale of t-shirts, and Hernández was accused of having registered the association’s name and logo in his own name. Furthermore, the complainants also suspected that the president used his company Picaporte to benefit by charging a false invoice of about 5,000 euros and enjoyed for his personal use a van that the association bought for 35,000 euros.
The complaint pointed out that Revuelta, which never formally registered as an association (the responsible parties used a pre-existing association for the elderly, named Asoma, to raise funds), never convened a “general assembly or board of directors, nor were annual accounts approved,” nor were “contracts of any kind” approved by its highest governing body. The registered members, the complainants noted, were not recognized as affiliates, but rather were called periodic donors, and their fees were accounted for as donations. Therefore, they had no right to information about the organization’s accounts or to vote in the election processes for the governing bodies.
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The former members who filed the complaint did so after unsuccessfully requesting all financial documentation from the president. After the news became public, Vox filed another complaint with the Independent Whistleblower Protection Authority regarding the alleged misappropriation.
Indeed, according to audios published on December 17 by El Mundo and El Plural, the leader of the ultra-right party, Santiago Abascal, was aware of these accusations before the complaint was filed and was concerned that the accusations about the alleged appropriation of these donations would implicate the party, as several party members are or have been part of Revuelta.
The recordings were made during two meetings held by Jorge Buxadé, a Vox European Parliamentarian, with both those involved and those who would later report the alleged irregularities to the Prosecutor’s Office. In the audios, Buxadé is heard discussing with González Gasca (Revuelta’s general secretary and then Vox’s digital marketing manager, though on leave) about signing a document to dissolve the association and allocate the remaining funds to non-profit organizations.
However, González Gasca refused, despite Buxadé’s insistence: “I say what needs to be done and what Vox expects from you: responsible action, because you work for us and that good faith can indeed be asked for,” the MEP is heard saying. Following the publication of these audios, González Gasca was disciplined by the ultra-right party and finally expelled this January.
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