Spain is a corruption cesspit

The Iberian Peninsula (home to Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar) has a distinguished history of having had some of Europe’s most powerful reigns. Portugal and Spain were global powers once upon a time, controlling vast regions well beyond its borders. Both countries had long and stable dictatorship in the 20th Century, that only came to an end with the peaceful passing of its respective dictators. The 21st Century has seen some spectacular corruption scandals in that region, the kind that would likely topple governments elsewhere. But as the saying goes, “Spain is different” (Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar fit the slogan just as well), and rampant corruption at the highest levels, while out and completely in the open, doesn't cause political earthquakes there.

Take Pedro Sanchez, current Prime Minister of Spain. Non Spanish media presents him as a maverick, the creator of an economic miracle (?), one of the only principled leaders willing to stand up to Israel and call their atrocities against Palestine while rebuking Trump in the world stage. PM Sanchez has been able to navigate relatively unscathed despite having a wife, a brother, a party, a former VP, a mentor and basically every close associate and collaborator deeply mired in monumental corruption.

Sanchez plagiarised his PhD thesis. After first term in office, he formed a coalition government with PODEMOS politicians (Pablo Iglesias, Juan Carlos Monedero, Iñigo Errejón, etc), i.e. employees and propagandists of Hugo Chavez. He ensured that his close family, wife and brother, got plum jobs through rank nepotism and made up credentials. His mentor, former PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has been recently indicted due to influence peddling, criminal associations, money laundering, misappropriation of public funds and corruption linked (again) to the chavista regime in Venezuela. The higher echelons of the socialist party (PSOE), of which he is Secretary General since 2017, have been and are involved (again) in influence peddling, trying to pervert the course of justice through bribery, corruption, etc. Like chavismo in Venezuela, where everyone is absolutely corrupt, Sanchez sells himself like the only edible apple in a basket of rotten ones.

Then there’s Portugal and arguably its once largest commercial bank (Banco Espírito Santo - BES), which for years and with the ever keen assistance of Portugal’s top officials became a black hole where Rafael Ramirez and his crew would stash away billions of dollars worth of PDVSA’s corrupt deals. Ramirez’s criminal chum Nervis Villalobos (do keep name in mind) featured prominently in different lawsuits related to BES in that jurisdiction and eventually decided to sue Portugal’s judiciary.

Moving across borders over to Andorra, a money laundering scheme exceeding $2 billion and headquartered at Banca Privada D’Andorra (BPA) prompted Treasury’s FinCEN to declare that bank as purely a money laundering concern. Again, leading characters were Ramirez, Villalobos, Ramirez’s cousin Diego Salazar and many others involved in the industrial looting of PDVSA’s funds. At first, the BPA case shed some light on the dynamics of grand scale corruption, where those indicted picked up the phone to shout orders at one of Spain’s former top judges (Baltazar Garzón) to demand that bribes were to be distributed to whoever had to be bribed in order to unfreeze seized millions and make the case disappear. France’s Dominic de Villepin also got a phone call with similar instructions.

Fresh information revealed in a new book by Ricard Poy, the utmost authority on the BPA scandal, shows that BPA’s management, all the way to the very top, knew exactly what they were doing not only for corrupt chavistas, but for Brazil’s Odebrecht, Andrade Gutierrez, drug cartels, and Chinese mafia as demonstrated in thousands of internal emails where money laundering specifics were discussed as a matter of routine. Poy’s analysis includes, for instance, how a Mexican chauffeur of Manuel Urdangaray (BPA’s chargé d'affaires in Mexico) was instructed to regularly pick up bags of cash -that BPA would launder- from Jorge Mathison (Venezuelan drug trafficker associated to Richard José Cammarano Jaimes and Gabriel Gil Yánez). According to the driver, sometimes bags of cash would come laced with cocaine, and another time instead of cash it was a load of cocaine bricks. None of it was a cause for concern to BPA of course, which was rather occupied thinking of creative ways to not raise alarm with BPA’s correspondent banks (JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Commerzbank and Société Générale), all of which took many, many years to sever commercial relations with BPA. Like Villalobos, the Cierco brothers Higini & Ramón) had the absolute gall of actually suing the U.S. Treasury. Little did they know that their internal communications about BPA’s criminal activities would eventually be made public.

Crossing over to Spain again, every last chavista criminally involved in BPA, and in larger scandals in Switzerland, naturally kept operations in Spain and / or Portugal and / or Gibraltar. Villalobos is everywhere. But that didn’t stop Leire Diaz, a close collaborator of PM Sanchez, from offering a €300,000 bribe on behalf of Villalobos to Spain’s Anti Corruption Attorney José Grinda. And that wasn’t all: Diaz actively sought through party contacts to accelerate the granting of Spanish nationality to Villalobos, who successfully fought extradition to the U.S. where he is wanted in separate cases.

Meanwhile, the rottenness of former PM Rodriguez Zapatero keeps emerging: jewels worth millions hidden in vaults, crude oil deals involving Treasury-sanctioned people, tonnes of gold smuggled out of Venezuela involving already exposed here Noor Capital, money laundering with the very best “financiers” chavismo has to offer like Danilo Diazgranados... it is an endless stream of corruption, as vast as the old Iberian reigns used to be. PM Sanchez cannot credibly claim that he didn't know / didn't take part in anything. Spain has been a net recipient of billions of dollars of illegitimate Venezuelan origin, and Sanchez has been personally involved in policy decisions geared at looking the other way and appeasing the chavista regime, whether under Nicolas Maduro or the Rodriguez siblings.

Gibraltar has been, is, and will continue being a provider of shell companies whose UBOs are involved in what’s described above. Spain is indeed different: it’s a place where the utterly corrupt don’t have to hide, fear retributions or go to jail.