Supreme Court judge warns: There are more "individuals and legal entities" in Cerdán's "loot"

Pedro Sánchez's strongman in the PSOE until a few weeks ago, Santos Cerdán, spent the night in Madrid's Soto del Real prison, with common criminals. When he entered the Supreme Court through the side door at 9:50 a.m. yesterday to testify as a suspect in an alleged corruption case, he was not expecting to be taken off in a police car to a cell.

Supreme Court Judge Leopoldo Puente took his statement as a suspect and later ordered his unconditional imprisonment without bail due to the "extremely strong evidence" that persists regarding the possible commission of the crimes of membership in a criminal organization, bribery, and influence peddling.

In a twenty-page ruling, the investigating judge details how the former PSOE organizational secretary orchestrated a corrupt scheme with the complicity of former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García.

The judge gives a possible figure for the money that may have ended up in other people's pockets: five million euros, which would have been distributed among these three and other "individuals and legal entities" whom he does not identify.

The judge fears that Cerdán could destroy evidence to hide his true assets.

Cerdán was the one who shared the "loot," and therefore, in the judge's opinion, he knows where all that money ended up. Ábalos and García took one million euros, and he took another, undetermined portion. However, in Puente's opinion, it is not credible that he shared the money "completely disinterestedly." Therefore, the investigating judge does not rule out the possibility that the remainder of this "cash prize," the amount of which is unknown, ended up in the hands of other, as yet unknown, individuals.

The judge's calculations are that the investigation has identified rigging in projects, mainly awarded to Acciona, worth more than €500 million. Based on the usual commissions in similar corruption cases, Puente infers that the alleged bribe must have been 1%, or €5 million. Therefore, for the judge, 80% of the money is unknown.

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The chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Office, Alejandro Luzón, identifies Cerdán as the leader of the plot, as does the magistrate. According to the magistrate, he was the one who started the alleged criminal organization in Navarre and then continued it in Madrid when he moved to the capital following Pedro Sánchez's appointment as secretary general of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), who appointed him secretary of territorial cooperation.

In the ruling, the judge contradicts Cerdán's claim and suggests that his interest in the Transport works was not due to his territorial coordination work, but rather because they benefited the party electorally.

This decision by the investigator came as a surprise because the other two suspects, Ábalos and García, are only prohibited from leaving the country and must appear in court every two weeks.

The judge justifies Cerdán's pretrial detention by stating that he risks destroying evidence. The difference with the other two is that his home has not been searched nor has his phone been tapped. Furthermore, his financial assets are still unknown.

The only thing the former Socialist congressman can do now is appeal to the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court and wait. Another option is to change his defense strategy and seek a deal with the Prosecutor's Office to obtain his release in exchange for an admission of the facts and a statement indicating the location of the money the judge is referring to.

Yesterday, Cerdán presented himself to Puente as a victim for having negotiated agreements with the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party), Bildu (Bildu), and Junts (Junts), and the judge criticized him for this accusation and for not giving credence to this version.

Furthermore, the judge denies that the recordings made by García, admitting to the distribution of bribes, were manipulated, as the former congressman suggested, nor that the former advisor, whom he met during the Navarra administration, was some sort of "undercover agent." If so, he would have had to have started recording them long before the formation of the "progressive government." According to Puente, it's not difficult to imagine why García recorded and saved these files. The judge warns that the audio recordings are "explicit" given his participation in the events and his "particular position."

The PNV is irritated by the former socialist's statement

Cerdán's imprisonment has further strained the socialist party's ties with its broader membership, significantly complicating the already fragile parliamentary majority. The coordinator of the Sumar Movement, Lara Hernández, considered that the case "requires reflection" and called on her governing partner to "clear up their political and judicial responsibilities," regardless of who will be held responsible. Podemos was more forceful. Following the growing rift that began with Sumar, and by extension, the Executive, at the beginning of the term, Ione Belarra accused the PSOE of having "dipped into the till" and denounced "irreparable" damage to democracy. From ERC, Isaac Albert warned Ferraz that "corruption complicates everything" and hinders the viability of new agreements, including the budget pact. Junts, for its part, called for "maximum transparency" from the PSOE and demanded that they assume responsibility if irregularities are confirmed. The difficulty for the partners in continuing to support the PSOE increases with each passing day. Especially in the case of the PNV, which, given the defense strategy employed by Cerdán—who yesterday slipped before the judge— that a businessman linked to the plot mediated in the PNV support for the 2018 motion of censure - had to defend himself in the first person against the links with the Koldo case, calling what the former socialist leader told the Supreme Court a "lie."