Koldo García entered the Supreme Court last Thursday carrying a huge black backpack. Inside he had what he needed for his first hours in prison. Just three hours later and after remaining silent before the judge, he left through the same door with the backpack slung over his shoulder. In freedom. The scene, except for the detail of the backpack, had taken place in a practically identical way a day before. His former boss, José Luis Ábalos, had also been released after taking advantage of his right not to testify.
What were intended to be two key days in the case being investigated by the Supreme Court concluded without significant developments. If anything, the confirmation by Magistrate Leopoldo Puente that, although the evidence against both is increasingly robust, there is still no progress in the search for the bulk of the corrupt loot that the main people involved would have collected. The questions surrounding the whereabouts of these funds constitute one of the tricks played by the defenses of those investigated, who suggest that if there is still no trace of the whereabouts of some alleged bribes that the court estimates at five million, it is because perhaps the alleged bribes were never of such magnitude.
It is not what the judge thinks, according to his latest writings. In the documents in which he agreed this week to keep Ábalos and Koldo García free, he takes the existence of these funds for granted, although he admits that in twenty months of investigations the investigators have not been able to find the “significant” amounts of “opaque money” from the alleged bribes that the former minister and his right-hand man allegedly handled.
Regarding the former head of Transportation, the magistrate points out that he could have money “perhaps in cash, perhaps deposited in third-party accounts that have not been found so far” and alludes to his “international contacts and links.” The judge uses the same adverb of doubt regarding the former advisor: “It is true that Mr. Koldo could, perhaps, have a certain amount of money, which to date has not been found. And it is true that he maintained certain links with other countries in the past, which it is unknown if they persist.”
Sources close to the investigation admit that, for the moment, no clue has appeared that would lead to the existence of accounts abroad where the alleged loot from the bribes could be stored. Nor were there any in the latest report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, dated October 3, which led to the new appearance before the judge of Ábalos and Koldo García this week.
The investigators poured into that report six months of work in which they analyzed a decade of banking transactions, remuneration and tax data of the former minister and then put that information in context with the messages and audios intercepted from Koldo García and his entourage that contain conversations about the alleged rigging of contracts and the collection of commissions.
This report leaves striking revelations, such as the fact that between 2018 and 2023 cash withdrawals from Ábalos accounts “disappeared” while “a significant increase in cash income” was recorded. It is a “pattern” that changed starting in 2024, with the outbreak of the case and the arrest of Koldo García. The report also reinforces the role of the former advisor as “custodian and manager” of the money from the alleged bribes, with which he paid his boss's expenses such as child support for one of his children, jewelry and flowers for his partners or the salary of the housekeeper.
The UCO estimates Ábalos' expenses at 94,883.63 euros, which his advisor paid with corrupt money in five years. The judge also places under suspicion other deposits into Ábalos accounts worth 48,300 euros of “unknown origin” and made by Koldo García, his wife, Patricia Uriz, or his brother Joseba. Although part of that income—32,300 euros—was paid as rent for a home located on Humilladero Street in Madrid that was owned by Ábalos and his ex-wife and where Koldo García's wife and his daughter were registered. The former minister did not include these incomes in his tax returns.
The aforementioned are the amounts that six months of exhaustive asset investigation of the former minister have brought to light, which leads some sources to doubt the real extent of the alleged bribes. The popular accusations, led by the PP, trust that investigators can find these funds, although they consider that, whether they appear or not, there is plenty of evidence to support the crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling and bribery for which the former 'number three' of the PSOE is being investigated. There are those who even venture that this money will never appear because, simply, Ábalos has already spent it during these years.
In the order in which he agrees to release him, the judge compiles other already known evidence. Remember, for example, that the former advisor also covered the payment of a ten-day stay in a villa in Marbella (Málaga) for Ábalos and his family in the summer of 2020. The UCO considers that this payment – the rental cost 9,800 euros – is “directly related” to the publication by the Ministry of a press release “fueling the idea” that the airline Air Europa was going to be rescued in the pandemic, as it finally happened. After the publication of that note, Koldo García sent a message to Ábalos in which he told him that this stay was “free for the inconvenience generated.” The judge has considered that there is no evidence of a crime against Ábalos in relation to that rescue.
Among the “illicit economic benefits” from which Ábalos would have benefited directly or indirectly, there are also three properties whose “common denominator is the continued presence” of Víctor de Aldama, the alleged corruptor in the case and who claimed in court that he had paid 250,000 euros in commissions to the former minister and 100,000 to Koldo García.
Among these bribes is the payment of the rent for the luxury apartment of an ex-partner from Ábalos and two lease contracts with the option to purchase under advantageous conditions for properties in Madrid and Cádiz linked to Aldama. The judge also considers it proven that the advisor received a “payroll” of 10,000 euros per month from Aldama for at least two and a half years. With these funds, the commission agent intended to ensure a certain “capacity for action” in a ministry with a million-dollar budget.
These are the main indications against Ábalos in the part of the case that began after the irregularities in the mask contracts during the pandemic came to light and whose investigation is near its end. All this, while the investigators continue searching for the alleged loot and analyzing accounts and movements of another of those investigated, the former number three of the PSOE Santos Cerdán, who this Friday once again demanded his immediate release from prison due to the “incomprehensible comparative grievance” regarding Ábalos and Koldo García.