Cerdán recruited Ábalos after Sánchez regained the general secretary position of the PSOE.

Former PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán was allegedly the one who maneuvered to recruit his predecessor José Luis Ábalos into the contract-rigging scheme. This, at least, is the suspicion of the Civil Guard's Central Operational Unit (UCO), which believes Cerdán was the rocking hand. Until a few days ago, what was known in the case before the Supreme Court and the National Court was that the former Minister of Transport was the one who masterminded the corruption network. However, new findings suggest there was someone above him, and that person has a name: Santos Cerdán.

The case reveals that the PSOE's number three, until last week, was already managing payments to Ábalos through the company Servinabar, which has been discovered to be 45% owned by the Navarrese leader. The UCO (University of Cordoba) has detected a payment in June 2018, just as he arrived at the Ministry of Transport. However, investigators suggest that this was not a one-time payment, but rather an ongoing one, with previous and subsequent payments.

Once Koldo landed in Madrid, he began to weave, under Cerdán's orders, his relationship with Ábalos.

There is a conversation between Ábalos's daughter, Tatiana, and Koldo García in which she claims €4,500, which should be deposited into the account of a foundation, managed by her and founded by her father, under the name Fialdelso. Ábalos's daughter's claim dates back to the end of June, two weeks after her father was appointed minister. On that occasion, the expected payment had not arrived, and so García asks Cerdán if there had been any problem with the money that was supposed to come from Servinabar. Now we understand why Cerdán is the one who tells García the account under which the invoice should be sent, and not someone else. The reason is that he is one of the real—not official—owners of this company, which in turn received several public contracts in Navarre without anyone knowing who was behind it.

At Tatiana Ábalos's insistence, Cerdán sent her a screenshot of the entry ordered by Servinabar. "Sorry for the delay. This delay won't happen again," García apologized to his boss's daughter.

In their latest report, the investigators explain that Cerdán, with the intention of recruiting Ábalos, first introduced Koldo García as his driver. This milestone marked the beginning of the transition of Cerdán and García's relationship to a national context. "At this point, both parties moved from the Autonomous Community of Navarre and from obtaining a supposed economic benefit derived from the completion of projects in that territory to introducing Ábalos into the relationship, as a preliminary step to the latter's subsequent appointment as Minister of Public Works in June 2018."

After the UCO discovered that Cerdán was behind Servinabar, the evidence takes on a new meaning. To analyze how this alleged criminal organization was hatched, it's important to analyze the dates. Ábalos and Cerdán were elected party leaders after Pedro Sánchez regained the general secretary position of the PSOE.

Ábalos and Cerdán were appointed secretary of organization and secretary of territorial coordination, respectively, in June 2017. In September of that year, García helped Cerdán find an apartment in Madrid for his move. He had initially seen an apartment in the Moncloa area, near Ferraz Street, where the PSOE headquarters are located, for 900 euros a month. "Servinabar is taking the apartment, I'll let you know," Cerdán told García.

The former minister opens the door to reaching an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office

José Luis Ábalos expressed his anger at Pedro Sánchez yesterday in a statement to SER (Spanish radio station) over the differential treatment he believed he received compared to Cerdán. The former minister asserted that he was "mistreated" as soon as the first accusations were revealed, while the president defended Cerdán's innocence until the very end. "I am," he said, "the idiot in all this" and "I have been used" by Santos Cerdán and Koldo. Both, he added, "were involved in a prior pattern" of corruption from Navarra and "inserted me into the ministry," where, he claims, they "pressured him to try to influence" hiring decisions. Regarding the hard drive that the Civil Guard intercepted when a woman tried to get him out of his home, Ábalos said it contained his defense strategy and conversations with Sánchez, ministers, and media directors since 2021. The former minister said he will appear to testify on Monday and has not ruled out reaching an agreement with the prosecution.

It has since emerged that Servinabar received public works contracts in Navarre through a joint venture with Acciona, without specifying what specific contribution it made to the project. The agents suspect this was a way to pay Cerdán illegal kickbacks for maneuvering in favor of the construction company in the contract award.

Thus, in October 2017, García arrived in Madrid and, under Cerdán's orders, began to forge a relationship with Ábalos, with whom he eventually bonded to the point where they jointly selected the prostitutes. According to the UCO (Uruguayan University of Catalonia), Cerdán's plan was to raid the Ministry of Transport and thus be able to continue helping Acciona, among other companies.