The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz has ordered this morning a new dump of the mobile phone of Juanma Serrano, former chief of staff of Pedro Sánchez and former president of Correos. Serrano is under investigation in the so-called Leire case, referring to Leire Díez, known as the plumber of the PSOE, which is being investigated for alleged crimes of fraud, document falsification, embezzlement, influence peddling, and malfeasance.
Pedraz authorized the examination of Serrano’s phone in an order issued last July 10 after finding indications of his possible involvement in the plumber plot of the PSOE that allegedly tried to “influence judicial processes” and carried out “irregular hiring.” However, Serrano’s defense requested the annulment of that dump because it was carried out without his lawyer being present.
Thus, the new cloning began this very morning in a sealed room of the National Court. The cloning will be completed within a period of eight to nine hours. Upon completion, the content will be transferred to a hard drive. Serrano and his lawyer have been summoned again tomorrow at the National Court from 10:30 a.m. to verify that last part of the process. The previous cloning will be annulled as evidence. The Civil Guard will prepare a report with the data extracted today from Serrano’s phone that will be incorporated into the case.
Serrano’s phone, an iPhone 15 Pro Max, was seized by the police between May 27 and 28 of this year. Since then, the device was under custody, but its interior was not thoroughly accessed until the judge ordered it in the order issued on July 10. The investigations carried out by Pedraz regarding other defendants, mainly Díez, revealed the existence of 9,355 WhatsApp messages and another 1,487 Signal messages between Serrano and the PSOE plumber. Those thousands of messages were the trigger for the opening of a “new line of investigation” on Serrano.
Until that moment, Serrano appeared with a “vague responsibility,” but the indications found in other materials seized from members of the plot made the judge consider the measure of searching his own mobile “necessary and appropriate” to determine whether he promoted or directed the illicit operation. Consequently, the magistrate ordered the dump of Serrano’s mobile. The first cloning has been annulled, but the one carried out today, in the presence of Serrano’s lawyer, will be the basis for a new Civil Guard report with which the judge will try to support his investigation.
The main objective of Pedraz to proceed with the examination of Serrano’s mobile, who according to the Civil Guard, got Leire Díez a job at Correos, is “to determine whether Serrano merely consented to said illicit operation or if his responsibility extended to promoting and directing it.” The magistrate has focused on Serrano’s management at the head of Correos, since during his presidency alleged irregular hirings were detected that, according to the judge, would have his “acquiescence.”
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