Cristóbal Montoro, investigated for seven crimes, managed during his two periods at the head of the Ministry of Finance the most powerful weapon of how many the State has to know the life of its citizens, the Tax Agency. The emails incorporated into the cause of the Court of Instruction number 2 of Tarragona show how Montoro was promptly informed by his collaborators of reserved information about taxpayers who, due to their political position or social relevance, made it a powerful arsenal to use against them.
“Electronic emails related to the treatment of sensitive and legally protected information.” Thus decided the current Tax Agency to analyze the judge of the messages that Montoro handled for purposes away from his work as Minister of Finance. Here they appear from political adversaries of the PP government, such as the Pujol family, to parties of party, case of Esperanza Aguirre, Rodrigo Rato or Josep Piqué, and famous with a great public exhibition, such as tennis player Rafa Nadal or Baroness Thyssen.
In July 2017, when Mariano Rajoy had barely a few months in Moncloa, the director of the Tax Agency, Santiago Menéndez, wrote an email to Montoro. “If you remember, a few months ago, Madrid told us that they were going to open a limited verification procedure to Esperanza Aguirre for the 2015 IRPF …”, the mail starts.
In the message, Menéndez announces to Montoro that the file is going to close after the relevant checks. There is the circumstance that this Aguirre statement was published in the electoral campaign of that year and that contained, according to the Madrid former president, very high income as it was the exercise of its private activity, during the period that left the policy. Aguirre, in an interview with RNE on Friday, said that the publication of that information made him lose “15 points” in the surveys prior to the elections.
Rodrigo Rato, the great rival of Montoro within the Cabinet of José María Aznar, considers that the cause that has earned him a sentence of four years and nine months in jail, was promoted torsible by the former Minister of Finance. In the emails incorporated into the summary, the evidence appears that, at least, a while was not treated as another taxpayer and that his case required the attention of the minister in person. In one of them, Menéndez sends Montoro the “calendar of research and inspection actions” to the former Minister of Economy.
The Chief of Cabinet of Montoro, Felipe Martínez Rico, transferred in July 2014 to the Minister of Finance which the director of the Tax Agency on another party partner communicated. “One of the partners involved is J Piqué,” writes Martínez Rico. It refers to the alleged concealment of goods by an important television producer to which they attribute a tax debt of 7.5 million euros.
PP political adversaries occupy an important place in this postal analysis. Oscar del Amo was deputy director of Tax in the Treasury until last Friday. He had survived – he is not the only one – to the change of government and continued in the dome of the Treasury. On March 15, 2018, still with the PP, he received a message from an email address of the Constitutional Court that went to share with his colleagues from the Ministry's dome. It was the appeal that Podemos had presented against the Public Sector Contract Law.
“The text is not public. Only the parties are notified,” warns the filter to his contact in the Treasury. Then, he passes the notice to his colleagues: “They have asked me not to reveal the source.”
One of the key lines of the investigation in the case of the Pujol was the purchase of the Argentine port of Rosario by Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, as a money laundering operation obtained illegally. The director of the Tax Agency in 2018, Santiago Menéndez, shared a summary of his actions with the Chief of Cabinet of Montoro. That information should be part of the cause that was followed at the National Court.
The control of the information that Montoro and his collaborators had on information on which he had to preserve the judicial secret is revealed in another internal email. Who writes is the director of the Tax Agency. “It is very important that before these reports are sent, the help (judicial) I have knowledge of them,” says Santiago Menéndez on a Pujol case report.
Confidential and relevance information flowed rapidly through the Ministry's dome. On July 20, 2017, Santiago Menéndez, at the head of the AEAT, ran to inform the Chief of Cabinet of Montoro: “The (delegation) of the Balearic Islands has opened verification procedure to Rafa Nadal and one of its linked societies Goramendi Goramendi XXI century in order to verify its sports income and image rights”.
Menéndez also warns of an open procedure against Baroness Thyssen. “In accordance with the information received from the Inspection, the firm of minutes in accordance with Baroness T is scheduled on June 16, 2017. The years 2011, 2012 and 2013” are regularized for a total amount (quota and interest of 5.5 million) “. To which a return had subtracted, so” in short, the amount to be paid for the tax obligation would be 4,314 million euros. ”
There is a second section of postal analysis by the current Tax Agency that refers to those containing “an eventual intervention on decisions of public officials.” Here the farm maneuvers stand out to set a favorable position to the Popular Party in the case of Box B, as already appears in this information from Eldiario.es.
This position is summarized in the auction of an email from the director of the AEAT to the rest of the Montoro team, including his chief of cabinet. He talks about the report that will be presented to Judge Pablo Ruz about the alleged fiscal crime of the PP in the reform of his headquarters with black money from businessmen. “The conclusions are that the donations received are exempt from the Corporation Tax since the only requirement is that they have been allocated to the purpose of the party,” Menéndez finished off his exhibition in the final stretch of Judge Pablo Ruz's instruction.
The Deputy Director General of Taxes exchanges emails with the rest of the Ministry's dome before the request for judicial assistance by the instructor of the case of Box B, Pablo Ruz. “If you ask us for a report in which we examine the effect of our criteria, without modifying it, with the facts, that not the right, of the specific case … let's cross the fingers. And I have silent.” Ruz finally process for fiscal crime to the PP against the Treasury criteria and the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor's Office.
All these emails are not part of the accusation against Montoro and his team that transcended Wednesday. His translation to a piece separated by revelation of secrets was the subject of a hard confrontation between the prosecutor of the case, Carmen García Cerdá, favorable to open the investigation, and his chief in anti -corruption, Alejandro Luzón.
The prosecutor forced a debate in which all her colleagues participated, a possibility collected in the Fiscal Statute, but the light thesis was imposed on that there were not even indications to investigate Montoro and her team by revelation of secrets. It is still unknown if Judge Rubén Rus, at the forefront of the case in Tarragona, keeps an open and secret piece open.
