If Sánchez has an opportunity to be invested again as Prime Minister, the PP will exploit every last resort to torpedo that hypothetical legislature from the start and force a new electoral call as soon as possible.. Feijóo is determined to fight for Moncloa despite the fact that arithmetic is stubborn, but first he will fight to try to control the Congress Table, a key institution that can hinder the legislative agenda of an eventual Sánchez Executive, without forgetting that the popular They already have an absolute majority in the Senate. In the PP they separate this vote —which will be held on August 17, the same day the Parliament is set up— from the negotiation to form a government, and they look to the PNV to try that, at least in this case, the balance tips in your favor. The jeltzales have already closed the door to sit down and negotiate an investiture for Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but the popular ones have an ace up their sleeve and are even open to giving up a seat on the Board to the Basque nationalists.

It is a “difficult” scenario, they admit several popular sources consulted, but “not impossible”. The measured optimism of the PP is based on the belief that the PSOE could not match that offer and cede some of its seats in the governing body of the Cortes, not only to the PNV, but also to the rest of the pro-independence forces.. In the first opposition party, they take it for granted that Sánchez will use other tricks to tie up support in this vote, but they do not take the battle for lost. “They do not usually enter into these types of issues”, they trust the PP.

After the first electoral call of 2019, Meritxell Batet was elected president of the Congress Bureau in the second vote, for which only a simple majority is required. ERC, Junts, Bildu and the CUP cast invalid votes. In December, after the repetition of the elections, the Catalan nationalists followed the same tactic and their votes were not counted, writing the word llibertat on their ballot papers together with a yellow ribbon, alluding to those convicted of the Catalan process.. They are the same forces with which Sánchez intends to build a new legislature, with the difference that, in this case, repeating the same play could cost the PSOE losing the presidency of the Chamber in favor of the PP.

The vote on August 17 requires in the first instance an absolute majority of one of the candidates for the presidency of the Chamber, but neither of the two large groups has the necessary majority to achieve it.. The sum of PP and Vox is 170 seats, while in the case of PSOE and Sumar it only reaches 153. The cooperation of the nationalist forces in this last case is essential.

The PP wants to attract the PNV to its bloc, at least in the vote on the constitution in Parliament, but even if the Basque nationalists side with the PSOE on this issue as well, both parties would be tied at 171 seats. The only vote of the Canary Coalition, which remains indefinite, and the step that Junts takes, with seven seats, will decide the color of the presidency of Congress.

Chances of success are limited, but there is room for hope in Genoa. The PP has begun to move the board, and the first “unofficial” contacts have already begun. Feijóo's team has several weeks to also start talks with Vox, in whose ranks they also hope to have a place in the organ despite the drop in seats. This circumstance could alienate the PNV, but the popular ones insist that, in this case, the Basque nationalists would have room to explain eventual support for the PP at the Congress Table, although they later refuse to repeat this dynamic to invest Feijóo. In an interview in El País, the Peneuvista leader, Andoni Ortuzar, complained about the “legislative techniques” used by Sánchez in the previous legislature, with the approval of the Table, for the abuse of the decree-law during his term.. “He blurred all the contours at will, used all legislative techniques to his advantage: that cannot happen again,” he warned..

In a context in which a single vote can mean the difference between everything and nothing, the PP has the support of UPN and will also try to strengthen the favorable vote of Coalition Canaria. The regionalist party only has one representative in the Lower House, Cristina Valido, who can undo the tie between blocks if Junts ignores the negotiation with Sánchez. Despite the fact that only two months ago the PP and CC signed an agreement to govern together in the Canary Islands, the formation has revealed its doubts regarding a possible investiture. Your vote, Valido inferred, will be sold to the highest bidder.

All in all, the PP does not plan to reveal the seams of some negotiations that it intends to carry out discreetly until August 17. The strategy is to “wait” and patiently watch the moves to your left to “let them burn” and not make any false steps. “If Junts makes a move, there is nothing to do anymore,” the party ranks insist. They also assume that they are facing a “heart attack” vote, in which the last ballots can be negotiated in extremis. At the moment, the PP has not decided who will be its candidate for the presidency of the Cortes, although Carmen Navarro, Feijóo's proposal to occupy the fourth secretary of Congress after the resignation of Adolfo Suárez Illana, is gaining weight in the pools.

Xavier Gabriel was always like a child. He was born in Sort in 1957, a small town in Lleida at the foot of the Pyrenees where some 1,200 people live and where Gabriel had very few friends and many detractors.. It is not clear if due to the eccentric character of the most famous lottery in Spain, very given to excesses, or because of the envy that his success caused in the neighborhood.

Whether for one thing or another, the neighbors always blamed Xavier Gabriel for taking advantage of the name of the town. He was the son of the town's tobacconists, studied and emigrated to the city, where he worked in banking, specifically in the now-defunct Banca Catalana, headed by the former president of the Generalitat Jordi Pujol.. After that experience he returned to the town and in 1986 he decided to open a lottery administration called Sort (luck, in Catalan)..

In those years, to maintain an open lottery administration, the Spanish State required the owner to sell at least 250,000 pesetas (1,500 euros) in a lottery and, despite the difficulties of reaching that figure in such a small town, Gabriel succeeded.. Until in 1994 he had his first stroke of luck linked, of course, to the El Niño lottery.

On January 6, 1994, the Bruixa d'Or awarded a prize of 10,000 million pesetas (60 million euros) for the first prize in the Children's Draw: 08,036. Surprisingly, several of the number buyers had returned the ticket because they had not paid it and thus the beneficiary of a large part of the prize (347 million pesetas, two million euros) was Gabriel himself who, instead of keeping it, decided to give them the money to those who had returned it. There began the legend of the famous Sort administration and its owner.

With the impulse of the first prize of the Child and the hand of his wife, Rosa Galí, Xavier Gabriel decided to turn a lottery administration where four people worked into an international business and opted to create a web page when very few people still had email. In this way, he managed to sell lottery tickets all over the world and in 2003, he already had a turnover of more than 26 million euros..

However, there began his problems with the Treasury. In 2002, the Tax Agency denounced the Bruixa d'Or before the Prosecutor's Office of the Audiencia de Lleida for an alleged crime of lottery smuggling for the sale abroad of 3.6 million euros in tickets. Gabriel sold the tickets from Andorra and through the internet and that, in those moments of birth of the digital world, seemed illegal. Finally, the Prosecutor's Office saw no crime in his actions and decided to file the complaint. That 2003 was his year of consolidation. The Golden Witch handed out 60 sets of number 42,473, the Christmas fat. A total of 240 million euros sold in tickets online that traveled to the United States, Canada, Uruguay, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Sort's administration began to appear in the international press and Gabriel's success went to his head. According to his own version, he became friends with Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactics, and bought him a ticket to travel into space on a ship that was due to take off in 2008 to test weightlessness.. I wanted to conquer the sky. The lottery was the only Spaniard with a ticket on that trip and the press did extensive media coverage of the case. That same year, Gabriel also announced the creation of Numbair Airlines, a private airline company owned by Wintuwin.. The airline never took off and the company became a real estate agency that rents out apartments in Rialp (Lleida)..

The eccentricities were not limited to space flight and in Sort he turned the lottery administration into a real fortune theme park. Gold witches everywhere and in a thousand formats for curious tourists to buy not only lottery, but souvenirs from the most famous administration in the world. Gabriel even hired a Marketing Director, and companies like Movistar, El Pozo, García Baquero, Pastas Gallo or Gas Natural (now Naturgy) fought to collaborate with him.

In 2016, the Bruixa d'Or already sold 86% of its tenths through the internet and had a turnover of more than 100 million a year. In his golden theme park full of lucky witches, Gabriel let himself be carried away by worldly pleasures and bought a red Ferrari that he parked in front of the administration gate to the envy and anger of Sort's residents.. Many times he himself dusted it, until one night someone made some scratches on the sides.

With luck increasingly elusive and fewer prizes distributed, the owner of the Bruixa d'Or returned to the front page in 2017, during the process. In an unexpected turn, Xavier Gabriel decided to take the social and fiscal headquarters of his company out of Catalonia, just as more than 3,000 Catalan companies did at that time.. In his case, he transferred it to Navarra, where tax treatment is more favorable to companies.

He argued that he was not in favor of independence (he was wrongly associated with the CUP deputy Anna Gabriel) and in an interview on Antena 3 he stated: “I will not make any more investment in my region. I have not wanted to continue investing”. He also explained that he was “against 30%” of his people, not against his people, whom he loved “as the most”. His anti-independence position was reaffirmed when he accepted the honorary position of Tabarnia, the pseudo-state created by Albert Boadella to ridicule the process.

From then on, things did not go so well for him and before the pandemic the Madrid City Council seized two properties for the tax debts he had.. The accounts sent by his group of companies to the Mercantile Registry presented losses.

At the end of 2017, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and a year later with lung cancer. La Bruixa d'Or continues to sell lottery, both on the internet and in Sort. On August 5, 2023, Xavier Gabriel died as a result of this disease.

The combat was partially settled a month and a half ago, but the result will be especially visible from 17-A, with the photograph of the new Cortes Generales. That same day, four of those who were leaders of the first Podemos will sit in their seats in the Congress of Deputies, and one of them is Íñigo Errejón, who left the party in January 2019.. Discounting the leader of Más País, in the lists of Sumar por Madrid on 23-J, only Ione Belarra, Javier Sánchez Serna and Noemí Santana are now elected parliamentarians, among the more than 60 leaders who made up the first State Citizen Council of Podemos (November 2014). None of them were in their first executive.

With the departure of Pablo Iglesias, in 2021, an era began without a single one of the founders of the party at the helm of the ship. Juan Carlos Monedero has a seat in the executive, but has not held an organic position since 2015. There are more figures of that original Podemos with public positions in formations aligned with Díaz (Más Madrid and Más País) than in the house bench in Congress: from Errejón (elect deputy) to Rita Maestre, spokesperson for Más Madrid in the city council of the capital, through Eduardo Fernández Rubiño (councilor of Más Madrid) and Jorge Moruno (deputy in the Assembly). And many other members of that Citizen Council collaborate with Sumar or have been seen at various party events.

Belarra, general secretary after Iglesias, was not elevated to the executive until 2017, and Santana, former counselor in the Government of the Canary Islands, had not held a seat in the Lower House until now.. The debacle of 28-M prevented the purples from revalidating the coalition on the islands, and the party sought accommodation for the Canarian leader on the lists for the general elections on 23-J. This absence of referents from that period is another of the faces of the earthquake suffered by what was the hegemonic force on the left to the left of the PSOE until a few months ago. Before the formation of Sumar, in the group Unidas Podemos-En Comú Podem-Galicia en Común, the purples had 23 deputies. Today there are only five, less than those who hold the PCE card.

Belarra, Santana, Sánchez, Lilith Verstrynge and Martina Velarde will represent the purples in the XV Legislature, who have been claiming their “autonomy” within the parliamentary group, and criticizing the electoral result, since the night of 23-J. They have the same deputies as IU, but the agreement stipulates that they receive 4% more resources. They keep 23%, the same as Compromís, Más Madrid and the common ones together.

And they lose figures like Irene Montero, acting Minister of Equality and the main vetoed on the Sumar lists. Also to the leader Rafa Mayoral, or to his last parliamentary spokesman, Pablo Echenique, who plans to return to his position at the CSIC. The future of Mayoral, the only member of the first purple executive that today resists at the top, and especially that of Montero are unknowns that, to date, they have not wanted to clear up.. For now, there is a leader with enormous weight in the previous parliamentary group, Txema Guijarro, secretary general of United We Can and former member of the purple executive, who is already part of Sumar's quota in the new legislature..

Other prominent references, such as the Secretary of State for Social Rights and economic manager of Podemos, Nacho Álvarez, have not resigned from their position in the purple party, but his role as economic spokesman for Sumar, during the campaign to 23-J, awoke suspicions among his colleagues in the leadership of Belarra. Alejandra Jacinto, housing spokesperson for Díaz's party, and also a member of the purple executive, remains, like Álvarez, outside Congress and in a kind of limbo, since the Podemos statutes do not contemplate double militancy, which today does is allowed in sum.

In fact, in addition to Álvarez, Errejón, Maestre, Fernández Rubiño or Moruno, there are at least half a dozen members of that first purple leadership who collaborate with Díaz.. Jaume Asens, ex-president of the parliamentary group, defenestrated as head of the list of commons by Barcelona, but recovered to build bridges with Carles Puigdemont in the face of negotiations on the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, or Pablo Bustinduy (spokesman in international politics). Also Clara Serra (one of the feminist references), Segundo González, Sara Bienzobas or Belén Guerra.

In addition, of those more than 60 leaders of the first version of Podemos, many have been seen in various events of Sumar. Laura Casielles (in her day Iglesias' press officer), Eduardo Maura, Jorge Lago, Miguel Ardanuy or Nagua Alba, among others, have done it..

Alba, former general secretary based in Euskadi, asked for the vote for Bildu on March 28, before the presence of ETA members convicted of blood crimes on their lists came to light. and that he confessed that he would vote for Pedro Sánchez in the general elections of 23-J. Only three figures from that Podemos will take possession of a seat for the same formation. A purple former leader veteran, aware of how all the pieces have turned in his party, recalled the famous phrase of Alfonso Guerra about how Spain was not going to recognize it “not even the mother who gave birth to it.” The metaphor made itself.

Feijóo continues to seek a “broad” majority to be invested. A government that would be “in solitary”, that is, formed only by members of the PP. Feijóo's words come after the Vox statement, in which Abascal's formation announces its unconditional support for a “constitutional majority” to prevent Sánchez from governing again with “the enemies of Spain”.

In an appearance from the Pontevedra town of Cambados, Feijóo has drawn three possible political scenarios in the coming weeks: a “blockade” that will lead the Spanish to an electoral repetition; an investiture of Sánchez with agreements with the independentistas or a “broad constitutional agreement” for a government headed by Feijóo.

The leader of the Popular Party has assured that this last formula is the only one that guarantees the stability of Spain: “One party is necessary for a Government and not 24 parties governing Spain. 24 parties with different ideologies and contradictory interests is the opposite of the governability of this country”. For this reason, the Galician leader will seek to form a majority with which to carry out his investiture: “I am going to try a broad agreement with humility, with respect for the general interests and with respect for the rest of the parties”.

The president of the PP has criticized those who are “disappeared”, without expressly citing the holidays of the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at a time when, for him, it is necessary to “give an opinion and establish a position”. Feijóo has insisted that an institutional blockade is not desirable and that elections cannot be repeated every time the electoral result does not yield a clear majority: “We will continue working so that this legislature is not ungovernable and so that we do not enter into a blockade of months like in 2015 or 2016”.

He has also regretted that the PSOE has “broken a pre-agreement for the governability of Ceuta”, which is “an autonomous city whose sovereignty is claimed by a country where it is vacationing” Pedro Sánchez, referring to Morocco.

The Galician leader has picked up the Vox gauntlet, which this Sunday has offered to support an investiture of the Galician leader, yes, without naming him. For Feijóo, this decision is “advance” and he has ensured that his proposal does not contemplate a coalition with Abascal's party: “The proposal that I make is a proposal for a lone government of the PP, based on a broad and constitutional agreement. To advance, create employment, finance pensions and improve public services”.

Vox, open to supporting a PP government

This same Sunday, Vox has published a statement in which they announce their support for a “constitutional majority” to prevent Sánchez from repeating the government with the “enemies of Spain”, as he describes Bildu, PNV, Junts and ERC. Thus, the 33 Vox deputies would support a constitutional majority in the lower house that allows the formation of a government that avoids such threats.. Vox will not be anyone's excuse or the impediment to avoid a government of those who seek to destroy the foundations of the Constitution,” he continues..

Likewise, the statement stresses the “seriousness of the facts” and the “danger” that Sánchez repeats as president “hand in hand with all the enemies of Spain” and recalls some recent words by Abascal: “We will not be an obstacle to avoid a government of national destruction”.

The Vox statement makes no reference to the entry of party members into a hypothetical Feijóo government, a requirement that they have demanded in various autonomous communities, such as Extremadura, the Valencian Community and, more recently, Aragon, and which is still blocking the investiture of the popular López Miras in the Region of Murcia.

Vox would support an alternative that avoids a PSOE pact with Junts, ERC, Bildu and the PNV. This was stated by the party of Santiago Abascal this Sunday through a statement. “Vox wants to express its concern about the possibility that the acting president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will be sworn in as president with the support of the fugitive from Justice, Carles Puigdemont, Bildu, PNV and ERC, whose general secretary escaped in Switzerland, Marta Rovira, is in charge of negotiating said agreement with the PSOE”, says the text.

“Thus, the 33 Vox deputies would support a constitutional majority in the lower house that allows the formation of a government that avoids said threats.. Vox will not be anyone's excuse or the impediment to avoid a government of those who seek to destroy the foundations of the Constitution,” he continues.. Likewise, the statement stresses the “seriousness of the facts” and the “danger” that Sánchez repeats as president “hand in hand with all the enemies of Spain” and recalls some recent words by Abascal: “We will not be an obstacle to avoid a government of national destruction”.

They have also insisted that said government would be a “serious threat” to the constitutional order and coexistence, adding that it would be “possible” for Sánchez “even to grant a referendum on self-determination, as the seditious claim”.. In the eyes of the party, this situation would mean “a coup that would probably lead to a breakdown of coexistence and social peace”.

Arms trafficking, dirty war, ETA, GAL, Reserved Funds of the Ministry of the Interior, PSOE card, Mossack Fonseca —Panama papers—, Luxembourg and money laundering operations, documentary credits, Laotian papers, Roldán's money, operation Sokoa —sale of arms to ETA—, false documents provided by the Interior, gold and diamond trafficking in Sierra Leone, real estate investments in Brazil… All those documents, the papers of Francisco Paesa, the super agent Paco, were in an attic in Paris, with a safe included, near the Arc de Triomphe and guarded by his nephews Alfonso —who played errand boy: “Run, go and tell them”— and Beatriz García —assistant and representative: “Go and do it to me”—. Alfonso continues in Paris and Beatriz in Luxembourg.

Camoens, the code name of one of Paesa's main collaborators, confirms to El Confidencial, while sipping a Tanqueray gin and tonic and lighting his pipe, that “Paco —as his friends called Paesa— had a habit of keeping everything. And the important papers were in the safe in the attic”. He recalls that “Paco was left without a team and his latest operations show it – he refers to his arrest, along with his nephew Alfonso, in November 2011 in Sierra Leone for diamond trafficking -. He wasn't very intelligent, but he was smart, a real rascal… And in recent years he had financial difficulties”.

Camoens delves into his profile, his preferences: “He had a very good hand with women and he used them and made use of them to carry out some operations… His type was blonde, thin and above all that he could handle them. In Paris I got to know three, all the same, and they were used to rent the different apartments that he had”. Camoens wonders: “Where is the Walther PPK, caliber 9 mm, stainless steel —he's talking about a pistol— from which he never parted, his Zippo lighter and his papers”. And sentence: “These papers are very compromised and there will be many nervous people because they represent a problem for the security of the State”.

Francisco Paesa died on May 3 in a town on the outskirts of Paris, Bois-Colombes, and his only daughter, Silvia, confirmed the death. On this occasion, it was not the false certificate that the lawyer Cobo del Rosal presented in 1998 at the National Court indicating that he died of a heart attack in Thailand.. Nor will we be able to resurrect him, as we did in November 2004 in Luxembourg: “The dead are alive”. But we can tell and narrate the tricks, tricks and falsifications that he carried out during “the 60 years that he was on the wire”, as his former collaborator Camoens defines Paco's life.

Act I

“Jesus. I'm Jesus”. It was 11:30 p.m. on March 23, 1994, and on the other end of my home phone was our contact person, our man to reach the fugitive Luis Roldán, former director of the Civil Guard.. The one who called himself Jesus, a code name for various and delicate matters, was Francisco Paesa Sánchez, who died on May 3, this time for real, in a small town on the outskirts of Paris, Bois-Colombes.

On May 3, too, but on this occasion in 1994 —29 years before— we published in the newspaper El Mundo the exclusive interview with Luis Roldán, the fugitive that everyone was looking for —Police, Civil Guard, National Intelligence Center and different friendly secret services—and that they placed in different countries of the five continents. Roldán was in Paris, the land that Paco controlled and dominated.. And the former director of the Civil Guard was clear: “They are not going to deceive me like Amedo; if I go to jail I will not go alone… I have two alternatives, either shoot myself or pull the blanket”. Roldán did not shoot himself, nor did he pull the blanket because his jailer, Paesa, knew that the Algarrobo —as they called it in the Civil Guard— was worth a lot of money. Paco was the person who accompanied Roldán to room 208 of the Marignan hotel, which was next to the Champs Eliseos, where my ex-partner Manuel Cerdán and I were staying..

Everything was prepared for the interview. Two recorders and my analog cameras, digital ones didn't exist yet, Canon, one AE-1 and the other New with 24 and 50 mm lenses. Paco, the man with a thousand faces, as we described and titled Paesa on several occasions in the newspaper, was behind us, attentive to what his protégé, his hostage and, above all, “his treasure” said: he raised 1,200 millions of pesetas from Roldán —what El Algarrobo stole during the time he was director of the Civil Guard and Government delegate in Navarra— which he placed, first, in the Aresbank in Madrid, then in Singapore after passing through Luxembourg, to end up in Uruguay in a Spanish bank in a numbered account and its key matches a brand of butter. All these operations were prepared by Paco and executed by his niece, Beatriz García. Ramírez, he was very angry because the paper ran out and the press could not continue shooting and reach one million. That day, photocopies also made a killing. Some time later, when we were able to escape the controls, surveillance, wiretapping and surveillance to which the Police, Civil Guard and CNI subjected us, who were determined to find out where we did the interview with Roldán —before judge Ana Ferrer we took refuge in secrecy professional so as not to reveal—I spoke to the superagent, and as he lit a Benson & Hedges cigarette with his silver Zippo lighter—two signature Paesa items—and stared at me and pointed his index finger at me, he said: “If any something happens to me one day, you will receive a package with documentation”.

Act II

Paesa, after selling, deceiving and delivering Roldán for 300 million pesetas to the former Minister of the Interior and Justice, Juan Alberto Belloch, at the Bangkok airport —February 27, 1995— with some false documents from Laos, the country where he was supposed to Roldán had been a refugee, disappeared. These documents were prepared between Madrid and Paris. The superagent vanished until July 21, 1998 when an obituary was published in the newspaper El País that read: “D. Francisco Paesa died in Thailand on July 2, 1998, where he was cremated. Your family and your friends do not forget you”. And, in addition, thirty Gregorian masses “in the Cistercian monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña… for his soul and to comfort those who carry him in our hearts”.

From that very day I was on guard waiting for the envelope with the documents. And Roldán, nervous and fearful, saw “his money” vanish while he was serving a sentence in the women's prison of Brieva (Ávila).. Right there, El Algarrobo, who died on March 22, 2022 in Zaragoza without the millions that Paesa and other former members of the Ministry of the Interior who had participated in the operation had taken, confessed to me in one of the meetings we had that Paco was alive. because he had received, in March 1999, two postcards from Marseille, a key that he had agreed with the super agent so that he would know that he was not abandoning him. But Roldán's doubt was still present and he began to suspect that Paesa had kept the 1,200 million pesetas and even threatened to go on a hunger strike and denounce him for “cover-up”..

Meanwhile, the superagent, in collusion with his lawyer, Manuel Cobo del Rosal, who was a professor of Criminal Law —he died on January 25, 2017— and also a lawyer for the former Secretary of State for the Interior Rafael Vera in the GAL case, presented in the National Court a false death certificate of Paesa that was signed in Thailand. The certificate in question was brought to Madrid by one of Paesa's men who participated in the Roldán plot in Paris, Laos and later delivery in Bangkok, Hans Albert. Hans, a former secret agent of the former GDR, visited Cobo del Rosal and Paesa's sister, María, who worked in Congress as a civil servant. But he did not bring me the package that Paco promised me.

That is to say, the man with a thousand faces was alive and kicking and had taken advantage of one of the three passports that the Interior had provided him to put land in the middle and continue operating from the bank account he had in Uruguay and with his niece, stoned, in Luxembourg. In the office that Beatriz García had set up in Luxembourg, with the help of a Paesa partner who participated in the movement of millions from Madrid to Singapore, there was a plaque attached, which I have today as a souvenir, and which read: “Beatriz García. Attorneys. Specialized study in international tax law and company law. 2nd floor”.

And it was in that same office where we had agreed to meet Paco, the superagent, in November 2004, after Francisco Marco, Method 3 detective, and a server detected, confirmed, and graphically verified that “the dead man was alive” and was in Luxembourg in the company of a lady, blond and thin.

Beatriz argued that she could not attend the appointment because she had had an abortion and that her uncle was out of Luxembourg. The first thing was not true, we tracked the hospitals and clinics in Luxembourg with the help of two Spanish nurses who worked in the Grand Duchy and confirmed that no Beatriz García had been admitted during those days. And the second was a ruse to escape again.

act III

December 2007. Roldán has left the Brieva prison, has returned to his home, Zaragoza, and is now convinced that he will never see the money that he took irregularly and gave to Paesa again: “Now, that he is officially alive and that he has a Spanish passport with his authentic identity – the super agent used false passports and documents with great ease – to return to the State the 1,500 million he took (1,200 from Roldán and the 300 that Minister Belloch gave him) “.

At that time, Roldán lived in the house that belonged to his parents and that he was able to recover. He supported himself with a small amount of help, 600 euros, which was given to him every month by a former member of the Ministry of the Interior who acted as a bridge with Paesa so that Justice would not catch his money.. It was a kind of “don't tell on me and I'll help you” for the million dollars that he took in commission for those bank efforts.

Roldán adapted to his new life and, one day, he met Natasha, a Russian citizen, through the internet.. Shortly after, in 2010, he married her. Natasha was the widow of a senior officer in the Russian Army and it was the third marriage of Algarrobo. Paesa's life followed its path, each day with more difficulties, problems and fewer millions of people.. “Paesa rises again in Sierra Leone”.

Five years later, the scandal of the Panama papers and the offshore companies of the Mossack Fonseca law firm were uncovered. And El Confidencial revealed on April 5, 2016 an exclusive by Jesús Escudero: “The resurrection of the spy Paesa caused chaos in Mossack Fonseca”. The subtitle indicated that “the Panamanian firm exchanged emails for 10 months to find out the real identity of Francisco P. Sánchez, administrator of seven companies in the Virgin Islands”.

El Confidencial, with its revelations, confirmed and documented that Beatriz García and Francisco Paesa had become a dangerous tandem for the interests of Panamanian lawyers, who were dedicated to providing cover for politicians, drug traffickers, businessmen and other kinds. The journalist Escudero reproduced some internal emails from the Fonseca office, and one of them read: “The story that Mr.. Mendoça about Miss Garcia and her uncle is very scary. I asked him to fax something, which he has done.”.

The reporter from El Confidencial explained in his text that “the attachment to the email was the exclusive published on November 15, 2004 by the journalist Antonio Rubio in El Mundo in which he revived the spy Francisco Paesa Sánchez after having faked his death six years before”. Escudero concludes: “The appearance of the ghost, as described in an internal email from Mossack Fonseca, caused a tremendous uproar in the Panamanian law firm that ended the firm's relationship with a Luxembourg intermediary”.

Beatriz García, according to the internal notes of the Panamanian office, was an intermediary for 38 companies and Paesa was the administrator of seven companies in the Virgin Islands. Francisco Paesa Sánchez has died and Beatriz García is still in Luxembourg. El Confidencial published on May 25, 2018 that “Zaplana used the niece of the spy Paesa to hide his commissions via Luxembourg” (J. M. Olmo, V. Romero and D.. Grasso) and, a year later, in February 1920, the newspaper El Mundo pointed out that Beatriz “is investigated by the Zaplana judge for being behind alleged bribes collected by the former president of the Valencian Community”. Eduardo Zaplana was president of the Generalitat Valenciana (1995-2002) and Minister of Labor (2002-2004).

The question, now that Silvia, Paesa's daughter, who for many years did not want anything to do with superagent Paco, has appeared, is where are Paesa's papers, the Walther pistol, the silver Zippo lighter and Paesa's properties and money?

Summary. Quotes and statements from Paesa and Roldán:

4 July 1994.

Paesa: “What I have done so far, I have done in agreement with my government”.

July 27, 1995.

Paesa: “I'm not sorry wood”.

June 12, 2002.

And he becomes the man with a thousand faces.

16 September 2016.

Paesa: “I asked Roldán to return the money. Not all. Catching it takes work”.

1 March 2015.

Roldán: “Pulling the blanket is useless”.

*Antonio Rubio is the director of the master's degree at El Confidencial (Investigative Journalism, New Narratives, Data, Fact-Checking, Transparency and Artificial Intelligence) @masterelconfi

“More than 200 Spanish mobile numbers likely targets of the Pegasus spy program,” headlined the British newspaper The Guardian on May 3 last year.. “The data leak reveals the magnitude of the potential surveillance of an NSO Group client believed to be Morocco,” added the chronicle signed by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, head of investigation for that newspaper..

15 months later, virtually nothing is known about that list of devices that were targeted by the Pegasus malware made by the Israeli company NSO. This list refers to mobile phones hacked in 2019 and not to those of four members of the Spanish Government, starting with that of President Pedro Sánchez, who were infected a year later (between October 2020 and December 2021), according to the judge's order. José Luis Calama of the National Court last July.

Thanks to a leak, the Forbidden Stories journalistic consortium revealed, as of July 18, 2021, that some 10,000 phones were targeted by the Moroccan secret services with Pegasus just before the pandemic, although not all were infected.. Rabat denied this information and took several media outlets and journalists to court, but their demands have been dismissed.. New information appears regularly that undermines the credibility of this denial. The Israeli daily Haaretz revealed, for example, in May that the Israeli authorities had prohibited NSO from renewing the license granted to Morocco to use Pegasus.

Most of these devices, more than 6,000, were Algerian, and more than a thousand were French, starting with that of President Emmanuel Macron, of 14 members of his government and there were also journalists, Moroccan exiles, French activists and businessmen.. The French authorities found out from Forbidden Stories about this massive espionage that their security services confirmed after the fact.

It is difficult to understand that, after the publication of this journalistic investigation, the security departments of the Executive, and especially the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Government, which was then headed by Félix Bolaños, did not take more measures to more effectively protect the mobile phones that used by high officials of the State. Sánchez's was attacked, for the last time, in December 2021, five months after the Forbidden Stories revelations.

From the outset, in July 2021, Forbidden Stories only indicated a Spanish motive, that of the author of this chronicle, as the objective of Pegasus. Throughout the summer of 2021, he also revealed the names of the owners of two other Spanish devices: the Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet, exiled in Barcelona, and the famous Saharawi activist Aminatú Haidar, who lives in El Aaiún (Western Sahara), but has a telephone number of a Spanish operator. It was only learned that another 200 Spanish numbers had also been targeted by Morocco at a later stage of the investigation..

The Forbidden Stories journalistic consortium involves 17 major media outlets, from The Guardian to Le Monde, including The Washington Post and the Süd Deutsche Zeitung.. For the investigation named Pegasus Project, the NGO Amnesty International was added to them, which has a specialized cybersecurity laboratory in Berlin.. No Spanish media participate in the consortium.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner, from The Guardian, confirmed to El Confidencial, in May of last year, that they would find out who were the holders of that list of 200 numbers to bring it to light. Sandrine Rigaud, coordinator of Forbidden Stories, explained, for her part, that, as the journalistic consortium did not include any Spanish media among its members, it had sought one, the newspaper El País, to collaborate on the Spanish side of the Pegasus Project..

Something must have been investigated because one of those who appeared on the list of 200 received a call to ask him who he was and, above all, what reasons could have prompted the Moroccan intelligence agencies to spy on him. One of them was, for example, Brahim Dahane, a Saharawi founder in El Aaiún of an association for the defense of human rights and today in exile in Oviedo..

15 months after The Guardian revealed the existence of that Spanish list, none of the media belonging to Forbidden Stories has published the result of the investigation that should have started in the spring of 2022. Asked about this delay or lack of interest in disclosing the names of the Spaniards whose devices were targeted by Pegasus four years ago, Sandrine Rigaud, coordinator of Forbidden Stories, did not respond and neither did the newspaper El País..

The mystery persists: which Spanish mobile phone holders were the target of attacks with Pegasus in 2019 by the Moroccan neighbor?

I have a glass in my hands that fills me with joy. Blonde and with a gray head, it seems that she is looking at me. The bubbles give it life and draw smiles to give me back mine. The drops that fall slowly condensed by the cold will never be of sadness, they are of laughter and joy. I have that conversation without words, that exchange of glances, 10 times a day —if not more— when the summer allows me more horizontality. The soda that it supposes running through me is the best anesthesia for pain or torment. And it's not just a good remedy, it's preventative medicine. The effective pleasure that is born from your gullet connects almost immediately with your thinking brain. And it directs it towards the good and minimizes the bad. And it makes you forget what you were worrying about a while ago.

A beer in hand covering a piece of the sea is an incomparable luxury. It is the best relationship between pleasures and price. The reconversion of the grain, fermentation in between, in hydration and party condenses for me the history of all our knowledge. After millions of years searching for rotten fruit at the bases of trees to get a sense of a moldable reality, those vicious hominids stumbled upon agriculture..

With excess stock they had to prove something. Water, yeast and time were going to improve their lives. The accidental mixture of hops gave consistency to the invention. The gatherings began and wisdom began to be something shared. Around a beer we have been fixing the world since the world is ours. Because the meaning of eating has always been to do it in a group.

A cold beer can put up with any topic. He unravels conflicts, he looks for meeting points, he always takes you to a good place. It is true that it has a limit: it is not necessary to give drink to the most foolish. Alcohol brings out everything we carry inside. And, if there is anger, take out anger; if there is violence, it takes nerves. If there is sadness, it brings out tears. I know because I've been through it, I've been 100 times foolish and 100 times badly drunk. But even in that it is good. Better than leaving it inside, and that it continues to weigh you down, it's good to get it out, even if it's vomiting.

When you have joy, happiness or contentment, you always get the laughter that provides the energy for you to continue living. A laughing engine is actually what we are, although we don't know it yet. We are always resisting the weakness of a laugh. I don't know when the story changed, perhaps when we came down from the trees, but even today we pay for it with that of living seriously. That is why those moments of rest where alcohol reconnects our angry neurons are so valuable. Life makes you more graceful with a few cool beers. When there is no room for one more, there is no doubt.

A giant beer is an indispensable good around a beach bar. What makes paradise to the sand and the noises, to the obese landscape, to the bad karma of the waiter, is that; shimmering, liquid gold in an icy bowl. His arrival mesmerizes me. It values the talent and logistical precision that are necessary to have so that the served snack reaches me and hundreds of others with a stretch of the arm. It is to support the glass on the limp of the table and I am stunned. I could count the bubbles, I would always take a photo of it, I would get on my knees thanking the gifts, I would leave it pristine, but I ended up drinking it to repeat the rite in less than 15 minutes.

With his bitter he beats mine. Your cold my coldness. His grades are to my liking, I don't need more. It has made me much more flexible, understanding and willing, I might say inclusive. I don't care if it comes in fifth, third, pint or liter. I always prefer blondes and I don't reject mulattas. The black, more colorful, conquered my youth. Now I can't with her, although sometimes I try. Being a little cocky, I suffer big triggers, my liver is no longer the same as it was before. I like to taste the Belgian ones, I am passionate about the German one. Mexican, in the morning or to help the tequila. British if they are branded, the simpler the better, my English was never good and I don't taste artisans. There aren't many American ones and they are always the last option. And I give myself to the locals. In the Caribbean, Caribbean and, for Australia, Australian. And anyone from the East. Tall, slim, they beat me if I go to Prague. With strength and personality they are in Romania, more rude those of Bulgaria, you cannot lose sight of them.

In more national terms we are going into nuances. What could be expected from a nation of nations. Galician or Catalan make clear differences by clearly marking their accent. Basques or from Pamplona approach me for San Fermín. I don't make jokes about Seville, the poor have enough. I already said that I like all of them even though I have favorites. I get egocentrism. The autarky of my people. The water of the Manzanares. The love of a first kiss to that girl who does not change one iota in your memory. The virtue of being the same after so much time is scarce in our days. And I try to reciprocate the deal. Being unfaithful I have been loyal and I maintain my consumption with great regularity.

Kiss by kiss, liter by liter, it is part of my history and, as I have already mentioned, of the history of my liver. I wouldn't have played sports, I wouldn't have had friends, I wouldn't have kissed many. Filtering my demands when necessary. Bringing me from I don't know where, enough verb or ingenuity to help the conquest, always with laughter in the middle, she has always been my friend. I enjoyed it and I enjoy it in each set that comes across my life and its presence is constant. I would give a thousand references. But it is true that, on the beach, the sunlight or the contrast always make me very aware of what is really worth

The independence of Catalonia is becoming an arduous undertaking for sovereignty. Added to the loss of mobilization and popular interest is the fact that stages have been burned and national and international doors have been closed to materialize it.. What seems to be a last cartridge is to appeal to the so-called Guinean way, now sponsored by some Catalan circles. The objective is to reach the UN and provoke its mediation. One of the basic premises is that in transnational instances it is considered that the territory has an ethnic or national minority in order to document an alleged aggression by Spain against it.. With those credentials, the intention is to be considered as a colony.

The Guinean way theory makes sense. It is about taking the issue to the C-24 commission of the UN, the same one that supervised the independence of Equatorial Guinea in the 60s of the last century, hence its name.. The theory has been cooked up for the last year, although it has been publicly exposed in the so-called University of the Institut Nova Història. It is a conference delivered by Jordi Castellà, councilor of Canet de Mar for the list of Improve Canet Primaries, sponsored by circles close to the ANC. Castellà himself, a former Canet Basketball Club player, had been founder and treasurer of the local section of ERC, founder of the Asociación Republicana del Maresme and coordinator of the territory of the ANC, as well as a member of Òmnium Cultural. An official in the IT and telecommunications services of the Generalitat, he defines himself as “nationalist, believer, republican, progressive and pro-independence”.

In a restricted conference last October, Castellà presented the theory to a packed audience. “The Guinean way is a legal, peaceful and democratic way to make independence effective, without deaths, destruction and reprisals,” he said.. To support this theory, the independence movement praises Francisco Franco's initiative to hold a referendum in Equatorial Guinea, although he stresses that he did so by the UN, after the decolonization committee was created in 1961.. What's more: treat that referendum as a role model.

a missed opportunity

He affirms that, at first, Franco granted the rank of autonomy to Guinea, but the UN rejected it and declared it a colony, for which reason he had to hold a referendum, which is now set as an example by the independentistas. It is about taking advantage of a theory amassed in recent months: “For a fictitious autonomy, Franco was shot in the year 63. And, due to this fictitious autonomy, Guinea is independent. That is why we have to make gestures”, is the conclusion to equate the current Catalonia to the Guinea of 60 years ago. The question lies in making the United Nations believe that there is no local government and that everything is decided in Madrid: this is what happened with Guinea and what they say is happening now with Catalonia, a parallelism that defies the laws of history and of rationality. The Constitutional Conference of Guinea was held in Madrid. It was decided agreed with the autonomous Government of Guinea. And the referendum was promoted by the Spanish State. The result was 65% in favor of independence and 35% against.. It is what we Catalans want, the indissoluble brotherhood with the Spanish people. We do not want to be subjects”, recounted the councilor. So much so that, at the end of the presentation, he commented: “Here we need firm politicians who ask for a well-done referendum, as was done in Equatorial Guinea”.

Castellà affirms that the Catalan political leaders lost a great historical opportunity to achieve independence after the Second World War: in 1945, 75,000 signatures were collected “in the American colony of America” in favor of independence, but this did not lead to the UN. What's more: he blames the then president of the Generalitat in exile, Josep Irla (from ERC), for making Catalonia subject “to the recovery of the Spanish Republic and the Statute of Autonomy”. He blames it on the fact that the Generalitat had no money and that the one who financed it in exile was the Government of the Republic, “which took the money to Mexico”. In 1961, after the UN special committee for decolonization was created, Catalonia did not ask for independence. It is that committee before which the independence movement now intends to bring its allegations.

The dubious coincidences

The sovereignist leader says that there are many points in common between Catalonia and Guinea: both were “annexed to Spain in the same century: Catalonia, with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 and Guinea, with an international agreement with Portugal in 1777-1778. Both were annexed by force. In addition, both Guinea and Catalonia were provinces (sic) of Spain and then autonomy”.

This dubious fact is contradicted by other exhibitions by Castellà, which seem to show that Catalonia was already part of Spain before.. “The day we go to the UN to demand an independent state, we can say that Catalonia has gained independence from Spain five times since 1640.. Approximately every 76 years, Catalonia declared itself independent in 1640 with the War of the Reapers, which lasted 19 years; in the War of Succession, from 1701 to 1714, Catalonia was an independent State; then, Francesc Macià's statement in 1931 lasted three days, and Companys's in 1934 lasted one day. Lastly, the Puigdemont one seems to have lasted a few seconds, but it is ongoing”, the councilor sums up the history of Catalonia. And he concludes: “Before the UN, that means that Catalonia always wanted to reaffirm its spirit of freedom, and Spain has always prevented it by force. This is a very important precedent.”.

Castellà stresses that the suppression of the rupture laws of September 2017, the annulment of the referendum and the declaration of independence, the supposed repression of the State and the flight into exile of some leaders are “acts typical of a regime of colonial oppression”. And how can we prove it? First, we have the 2006 Statute, cut and laminated despite having the endorsement of Parliament, Congress and the referendum. Second, we have the finances seized.

The controller of the Generalitat is from the time of Montoro and has to report directly to the general intervention of the State. All the expenses of the Generalitat are sent directly to Madrid and there they are audited. Therefore, we have a controlled economy. Third, we have politicians disqualified for having achieved independence and for having represented the majority will of the people.. Besides, we have exiled and persecuted politicians abroad. And, fifth, the Spanish State continues to practice espionage and infiltration of organized civil society.

This is also a demonstration of a colonial, authoritarian, oppressive country that wants to prevent us from being independent.. All this has to be brought to the UN well reasoned and well explained so that they understand it and support us. There is a lot of documentation about it.”.

The cheat referendum

The roadmap is to take the decolonization petition to the C-24 committee, which meets every year, so that Catalonia is incorporated into the list of territories to be decolonized, such as the Malvinas Islands, Bermuda Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat Island , Anguilla, Samoa, Virgin Antilles, New Caledonia or Saint Helena. The question is how to request it: it can be through the Government, the Parliament, the republican government in exile, a referendum promoted by organized civil society, by collecting signatures or by a UN member country requesting it. be friend. The bad thing is that there are no friendly countries.

What's more, the only territories that recognized the independence of Catalonia in 2017, according to Castellà, were “the independent republics of Ukraine, Donetsk and Donbas, although they did so without anyone asking them to”. And if the Catalan institutions do not ask the UN? “Well, then, we have to change our representatives”, is the answer to this possibility.

Once a UN declaration has been achieved, independence will be a fact, according to the pro-independence supporters: the EU will have no choice but to recognize it and Spain has one trump card: then call a full-fledged referendum. “But they will promise us the Moon, as the United Kingdom did with Scotland. They will promise us a referendum with all the trappings they can. But we have to be smart and tough, and hold a referendum that will lead us to independence.”. In this regard, he stated that “the Canadians cheated to win the referendum in Quebec: they massively nationalized the Chinese and thus they massively voted against”.

During the appeal process before the UN, the independence movement must, however, be capable of mobilizing people in the streets. “The countries of the world have to see that, behind the request made by institutions or politicians, there is a people. Pedagogy must be carried out and this fictitious autonomy unmasked”. In addition, he maintains that “those who promise you that independence will be possible with disobedience and nothing else are kidding you. Catalonia needs international recognition. Without it, there will be no independence.”

The culmination of this story is that the independence movement dreams of a positive reception of its initiative in principle. Because? “We have an advantage: many C-24 countries are decolonized countries,” argues the councilor from Canet to imply that the Catalan case can generate sympathy among committee members.

When Juanma Moreno was in opposition, he launched a very aggressive campaign against the inheritance and gift tax. The popular mantra consisted of accusing the (then) all-powerful PSOE of having turned Andalusia into a “fiscal hell”. Signature collection booths lined the street with a stop sign, and related media reported on families ruined by having to pay too much for a remote inheritance.. With that effort, it makes sense that the first decision he made upon arriving in San Telmo was to approve the 99% bonus of the controversial tribute..

This is how it appeared in the agreement it reached with Ciudadanos, and since then the PP has deployed this same policy wherever it governs. The regional map was stained almost entirely blue in the elections on May 28, which has led to these tax cuts spreading over almost the entire map. The popular ones have already launched the necessary reforms to subsidize the tax in the Balearic Islands and in the Valencian Community. And the recently signed agreement in Aragon – with the striking absence of Jorge Azcón – between PP and Vox includes that 99% discount between parents, children, grandparents and spouses. And the promise to advance further reductions for other degrees of kinship, such as cousins or uncles and nephews.

It is not the only tax reduction promoted by popular governments in recent years. And they all have in common that they are an imitation of the fiscal policy that the PP began to implement decades ago in its laboratory in the Community of Madrid.. After successions and donations, it was the turn of patrimony, also subsidized in the capital. Juanma Moreno did not want to be less and, in the early stages of his second term, also discounted this tribute to great fortunes to 99%. The objective was none other than to compete with Madrid. But deep down there is a conviction: reducing taxes on capital generates more economic activity and, therefore, greater collection via personal income tax.. The Laffer curve, which has one of its main apostles in Juan Bravo. It is not uncommon for Alberto Núñez Feijóo to sign the former Andalusian Minister of Finance, who applied these tax cuts, as Genoa's economic manager when he became president of the PP.

Carlos Mazón and Marga Prohens are the outstanding students of Moreno. The first two barons to reach an agreement with Vox to form a government. The Balearic Islands announced it on July 19, 13 days after being elected president of the island Executive. And its reduction affects parents and children, according to the decree by which it was approved and which also included a reduction in property transfers. Crossing the Mediterranean, Mazón made a similar announcement just two days later, at the first meeting of the Council shared by PP and Vox in the Valencian Community.. In this case, there was already a 50% bonus, but it will grow to 99% once the norm is approved in the Cortes. It is true that, in the Valencian case, the application is retroactive despite the fact that it will be processed as a reform of the current tax law and not a decree.

Gonzalo Capellán from La Rioja did the same in the same investiture plenary session, still in the month of June. And María Guardiola will not have to do it because the PSOE of Guillermo Fernández Vara already applied reductions to this tribute in 2020. He is not the only socialist baron who applied measures in this regard. It must be remembered that Andalusia, before the arrival of the PP, extended the minimum tax exemption for inheritances thanks to an agreement between the Socialists and Ciudadanos. The head of the Treasury in the Government of Susana Díaz who approved this measure was none other than the current minister of the branch, María Jesús Montero.

The last to get on this bandwagon is the aforementioned Jorge Azcón, who has left Fernando López Miras as the only popular baron without having achieved the investiture in the absence of an agreement with Vox. But the Murcian president had among his plans to extend the bonuses to uncles and nephews to 99%, something that, according to what he said on ABC, does not happen anywhere else in Spain.. It will have to wait, although the countdown to the repetition of the elections continues inexorably.

How much does the ISD contribute?

According to data from the Ministry of Finance and Public Function, the autonomous communities collected 3,240 million euros in 2021 from inheritance and donation tax settlements. Catalonia, with 864 million, is the territory with the highest income, followed by Madrid, with 681. The community chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso has a 99% tax subsidy, but takes advantage of the capital effect to enter an amount that is relevant compared to the rest. Further behind are Valencia (334 million), Andalusia (257) and Castilla y León (244).. In the set of tax revenues of the autonomous communities in 2021, this tax accounted for 4% of the total.

The Andalusian case serves as an example of the drop in collection of this tax since the first reductions, approved in 2016. In that year, income in the most populous community in the country was 340.8 million. In 2018, the last year before the arrival of Juanma Moreno in San Telmo, the collection was 299 million euros. Throughout this period, the fall in percentage terms has been 24%. During the first years, the decision responded to the PSOE's need to win the votes of Ciudadanos in order to govern Andalusia after this tax was considered, in a certain way, unfair.. Under the governments of PP and Cs, as is the case now in the rest of the country, the reductions are based on the conviction that the lower tax pressure is beneficial for public coffers.

But it is still striking that these measures coincide with the return to the board of the reform of regional financing. Carlos Mazón is a good example, despite the fact that, when he announced the tax cut, he assured that there would be no reduction in the provision of services because there was enough “fat” to cut spending. It must be taken into account that the idea of reforming regional financing that María Jesús Montero has is related to the harmonization of this type of tax (inheritance and heritage) to avoid competition between communities. This was established in the document that the Minister of Finance directed when she was an Andalusian councilor as a proposal to renew regional financing.