Mismatch in the amounts of donations made by former Transport Minister and former Organization Secretary of the PSOE José Luis Ábalos to the party led by Pedro Sánchez. Supreme Court judge Leopoldo Puente, investigating judge in the so-called Koldo case, issued an order this Thursday ordering that the PSOE be required to contribute, in addition to the amounts paid or transferred to Ábalos, those transferred by the latter to the political party,"as a donation or for any other reason."

The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has considered it "necessary to know all the donations made by Ábalos to the PSOE from 2014 to 2024, both inclusive, with information on the bank account from which they were made."

In an official document, the UCO asked the High Court to ask the party for a detailed report"of all the monetary amounts paid by José Luis Ábalos to the aforementioned party. In this sense, it is requested that each and every one of the donations made be reported, indicating the date, payment method, bank account of origin, concept and/or comment, as well as any other data associated with the aforementioned payments."

The reason? The Tax Agency accuses the former Minister of Transport of having made donations to the Socialist Party totaling €44,729.29, while the former PSOE Organization Secretary's banking records only show"payments" to the party from 2014 to 2024, inclusive, for a total of €8,471.36.

After receiving the request from the UCO, the judge of the Second Chamber has requested that each and every donation made by José Luis Ábalos to the party be reported, indicating the date, payment method, bank account of origin, the reason and/or comment, as well as any other information associated with the aforementioned donations.

In his ruling, Puente explains that he is agreeing to these investigative proceedings with the purpose of clarifying"apparent lack of harmony" in the information available about Ábalos's true financial situation.

The PSOE has responded to the Supreme Court's request, which had detected apparent discrepancies in the amounts contributed to the party by former Organization Secretary José Luis Ábalos, pointing out that there are two distinct ways of contributing: one directly to the deputy and another through the Parliamentary Group.

This Thursday, the Supreme Court had asked the Congress of Deputies and the PSOE to inform it of the contributions and donations made by Ábalos, given the"apparent lack of consistency" between the data collected by the Treasury and the data recorded in the former minister's bank accounts.

For its part, the PSOE has explained that there are two different ways to receive contributions: one directly from the MP and another through the Parliamentary Group. MPs, such as Ábalos—who still holds a seat as a member of the Mixed Group—receive their salaries from the Parliamentary Group, not from the Congress of Deputies."The voluntary contribution is deducted from that salary," indicate sources reported by Europa Press. Furthermore, each MP pays a fee to the PSOE, as do all its members. This payment is made by each person individually, which would explain—always according to the party's version—the lack of consistency detected by the Civil Guard in Ábalos's tax data and accounts.

Congress Payments

The court adds that the UCO's letter, dated July 8, states that the economic perceptions attributed by the AEAT to the former minister by the Congress of Deputies in the form of remuneration, allowances, supplements or other economic perceptions from 2014 to 2024 inclusive have been analyzed, with a total of €751,421.57. However, the amount reflected in its accounts, coming directly from the Congress of Deputies, totals €79,841.74 for those same years.

For his part, the judge also addresses the General Secretariat of Congress"so that it may inform this Supreme Court in this special case, as soon as possible, of all remuneration or amounts paid for any reason to the investigated José Luis Ábalos since 2014, detailing each and every one of the payments made, indicating the date, payment method, destination bank account and ownership, as well as any other data associated with the aforementioned remuneration."

Information about construction companies

In another order, the TS instructor makes separate requests to the Tax Agency and the General Treasury of Social Security to obtain data on the businessmen investigated in the case and their companies - the former director of Acciona Fernando Merino, the builder José Ruz, of Levantina Engineering and Construction (LIC), and the brothers Antonio and Daniel Fernández Menéndez, of Public Works and Irrigation (OPR), as well as the Fiadelso Foundation -linked to Ábalos-, in order to complete the true financial situation of the individuals, as well as of the legal entities for whose benefit the former could have been acting.

The judge explains that the information obtained may be cross-referenced with the bank details of these individuals, which were already requested from various banks in the writs issued a few weeks ago by the Supreme Court. The ruling adds that this will allow"understanding the personnel structure of the different companies and the links that may have existed between the individuals hired by them, as well as the periods of time during which certain individuals may have provided professional services to them, in order to confirm or rule out the relevant matters already on record, always within the circumstantial evidence that corresponds to the procedural phase we are in, based on what has been carried out so far."

The order also requires the Spanish Tax Administration Agency to provide information between individuals and legal entities for the period from 2014 to 2024. In the case of the businessman Joseba Antxon Alonso and his company Servinabar 2000, the request is made to the Navarra Regional Treasury.

Secondly, it requires the General Treasury of Social Security to provide the employment history of the five businessmen who are under investigation in the case, as well as the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán and Koldo García, and the latter's ex-wife, Patricia Uriz Iriarte.

This request to Social Security also refers to the period between 2014 and 2024, both inclusive, and the judge points out that it is being made"in order to understand the work performance carried out by the same in the aforementioned period of time and, consequently, the relationship that they may have had with certain individuals, investigated in this procedure, or with the companies in whose scope and eventual benefit those individuals operated."