The Treasury exerted fiscal pressure on online gambling to benefit a client of Montoro's former firm.

In a report, the Mossos d'Esquadra police (Catalan police) point to "possible irregularities" on the part of the Ministry of Finance, together with the Tax Agency, in favor of the gaming company Codere "thanks to the intervention of the consulting firm Equipo Económico."

In their investigation, to which La Vanguardia has had access, agents from the Central Anti-Corruption Unit describe how the team of the then Minister of Finance, Cristóbal Montoro, coordinated with the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF), which reports to the Tax Agency, to require online gaming companies seeking licenses to operate in Spain to pay back taxes through tax inspections as a requirement for obtaining the license.

The agents' thesis is that these payments were a form of tax pressure on foreign companies in order to reduce the market in Spain. The Mossos d'Esquadra have analyzed a series of emails to conclude that Equipo Económico, which had Codere as a client since 2008, could have been behind this operation. The company paid this firm €679,000. Rafael Catalá, who would later be appointed Minister of Justice, served as secretary to the board of directors.

According to the Mossos d'Esquadra report, Codere is one of the main gambling operators in Spain, with a presence in other EU countries, and was very interested in the text of the law that would regulate online gambling, which ultimately resulted in Law 13/2011, approved by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

There are emails between Codere and Montoto's then-chief of staff, Felipe Martínez Rico. The plan outlined by the Treasury is that "when the required operators go to the AEAT, they will be required to regularize the fee to obtain the license," as stated in an email between the Secretary of State and the minister's chief of staff, dated April 23, 2012.

“Payment of the fee ended up being a sine qua non condition for obtaining a license, forcing foreign operators to regularize their status by those dates, even though the law did not contemplate retroactive tax payments.”

To carry out this plan, according to information from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Spanish Police), the Treasury, through the Director of Gambling Regulation, and the Tax Agency, through the ONIF (National Institute of Tax Administration) then headed by Santiago Menéndez, now under investigation in the case investigating this scheme by order of Tarragona's Investigative Court No. 2, were in agreement. In response to these complaints from the Ministry, Menéndez sent an email stating, "I would like to know what I expect."

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The ONIF (National Institute of International Development) carried out investigations with online gambling companies that had applied for licenses to operate in Spain, according to the police report. According to the emails, the Directorate General for Gambling Regulation requested that Menéndez move up the date of the reports on the cases.

The State Secretariat for Finance received an email from Menéndez entitled "Late Projected Figures for Online Gambling," which included a document prepared by the special delegate for Madrid, Raquel Catalá Polo, sister of former minister Catalá.

Montoro tried to deny a news report about these alleged irregularities.

The email included a table with estimates that companies could self-assess if they submitted late settlements to regularize the situation.

The Mossos d'Esquadra have also located an email in which a Codere official requests a meeting with the State Secretariat for the Treasury between the owner, Miguel Ferré, also under investigation in this case, and the company's president.

What draws the attention of researchers is that once Rajoy's government was formed in December 2011, the granting of licenses to operate in online gambling in Spain ground to a halt. In January 2013, the Bloomberg news agency published information pointing to alleged irregularities in the granting of licenses to foreign companies.

In a harsh statement issued hours later, the Treasury Department dismissed the information as false and announced legal action. According to the exclusive report by journalist Ben Sills, the department headed by Montoro, through the National Tax Agency (ONIF), had carried out inspections of non-Spanish companies to ensure they paid gambling taxes retroactive to the publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE) of the law approved by Zapatero as a requirement for obtaining a license to operate in Spain.

Operation similar to the gas sector

This could have benefited the Spanish company Codere, a client of Equipo Económico, whose secretary of the board of directors was Rafael Catalá between 2005 and 2012. Catalá later became Minister of Justice and returned to Codere after the change of government in 2018.

In fact, among the emails analyzed by the Catalan police, there is an email sent by a Bloomberg official refusing to correct the situation, warning Montoro's team that "news published by the agency is subject to an exhaustive review of its veracity before publication."

In their report, the agents conclude that this operation is "similar" to what happened in the gas sector. The judge is investigating whether Montoro and his team approved legislative reforms in favor of clients of the Equipo Económico law firm, which the minister founded before coming to power, in exchange for payment.