The broker Víctor de Aldama, who at one time reached a deal with the Prosecutor’s Office to get out of prison for another case, has appeared before the Supreme Court judging him for the mask case, willing to tell how he paid the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos and his then advisor Koldo García, also in the dock. He has elaborated on all the corruption within the Ministry and beyond. That red line, according to the businessman, was crossed at Ábalos’s request because – he has declared – “he needed money for the party’s financing” and the president knew all about it.
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Aldama has said that once a relationship of trust had been established between the three accused, he was given a first task. The minister needed him to be the link between the ministry and the companies that wanted public works. He was to be the one to collect money from them and in return they would be given the contract they wanted.
That is how he explains the start of the “roulette” of “kickbacks.” Aldama was the one managing that money. “I don’t look for them to give me money or contracts. What I seek is notoriety and to have more power to do my business in another area. They are the ones who look for me and start with the PSOE,” he has indicated.
“A roulette starts, contracts begin to fall”
Therefore, companies start paying him and he takes the cash to Koldo and Ábalos at the Ministry and at the minister’s official residence. “A roulette starts, contracts begin to fall. There was no rule. There was no percentage, it was what we agreed per contract,” he has assured.
On one hand, he recounts, there was that money from the companies, which ended up in the hands of his two accomplices and the party. But then there was what he gave them for their own business, always according to his statement.
To start, a symbolic amount, the 10,000 euros both needed for their personal expenses, and then other types of gifts, including fertility treatment for Koldo García’s partner, a motorcycle or a car.
Aldama has told how he met Koldo García by chance shortly after arriving at the Government in a café through his brother, who worked at the Ministry. It was then that García thought he could advise them with his business knowledge abroad, especially in Mexico.
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After several meetings, Koldo took a step further and introduced him to the minister, José Luis Ábalos. Aldama understood that as an opportunity to have “more notoriety” and “power” for his businesses.
According to him, his intention at no time was to become corrupt or to corrupt others. That came later and is what he is “sorry for,” he has asserted. One thing led to another. As he has explained, Ábalos saw him as a trusted person who could carry out tasks for the Government and that, according to Aldama, the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez knew about.
The rally with Pedro Sánchez
That is why Ábalos urged Aldama to attend a PSOE rally and there he would take the opportunity to introduce him to the president. And so it happened, according to the businessman’s version given in response to questions from the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Alejandro Luzón, in his statement as an accused in the trial held at the Supreme Court.
“I told Koldo that I didn’t like those kinds of events, that I wasn’t from the PSOE, nor a member of the PSOE, and to sit through a three-hour rally of a man who doesn’t interest me at all. But Koldo told me it was an opportunity, everyone would be there and that the boss had already spoken to the president about me,” he emphasized.
Aldama clarified that the term “boss” to refer to Ábalos was out of respect, not because they formed any organization. “He is the minister, he is the boss. Not because of anything we had organized,” he clarified.
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During the rally in question, Aldama pointed out that he was taken to a private area to talk with Pedro Sánchez, who, according to his statement, told him “thank you very much for everything, I know perfectly well what you are doing and I just want to thank you.” After which he took a photo with the head of the Executive.
“I don’t speak at all with the president anymore,” he added. Then he realized that Koldo calls the Prime Minister “Pedro” and that is when he “evidences” their close relationship. Then, he recalls some words Koldo told him: “The day the president tells me I have to call him president, I’m leaving. He told me he owes me a lot and he knows why.”
Sánchez’s letter to Guaidó
After that meeting, Aldama would already have the president’s approval, according to his account, and his tasks began to be formalized. Then he would take on the next task, meeting in 2019 with the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, self-styled interim president, to deliver a letter from Pedro Sánchez to show his support.
Aldama recounted how he expressed to the then Minister of Transport his doubts about why he was going and not a government member, for example the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya. Ábalos’s words were, according to the accused, that if they sent “that useless woman to Venezuela we would lose the business.”
Besides delivering the letter, in his view, they sought to open business there. And that is why he has told of his supposed meeting with Guaidó: “he received me and told me we can collaborate on many things.” He indicated that the Venezuelan leader explained that, through American intermediaries, he had taken leadership of two oil companies linked to PDVSA in Washington and Cartagena de Indias.
The Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor wanted to return to Sánchez’s letter: “I delivered (to Guaidó) the letter in Caracas,” he confirmed. Then, Ábalos explained to him that the president “knows absolutely everything and all the movements.”
“Ábalos didn’t count the money out of politeness”
With all that, Aldama “was already in the circle.” And the more explicit requests and deliveries of envelopes with money directly to Ábalos in his office began, although, “he didn’t count it there out of politeness, he kept it in a drawer.” Then came the disguised purchase of an apartment on Paseo de la Castellana or the apartment for Ábalos’s lover, Jéssica Rodríguez.
Aldama has assured that he even carried packages with 450,000 euros to Ábalos’s home in Viso de Madrid. Aldama got the money “from the construction companies.” He carried it in a backpack. Although he tried “to pay something to the minister by transfer, which would be ideal because it was very difficult to have so much cash every month.”
Then he started with Jéssica’s apartment. “They told me part of that money was for the party’s financing. That the president knew it. Koldo called him often, spoke to him very confidently,” Aldama assured while Koldo laughed openly in the dock.
Aldama has acknowledged that they had a relationship of trust, especially with Koldo García, but the situation began to sour and he said to stop paying for the Plaza de España apartment where Rodríguez lived: “we were all implicated.”
When Ábalos was dismissed in July 2021, the relationship became complicated but Aldama has assured that he continued fulfilling his commitments to pay them monthly.
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