The judge of the National Court Ismael Moreno continues to unravel the mess that the capitostos weaved to find out where the threads of the Koldo case go. Yesterday morning he took a statement from a commander of the Civil Guard who was arrested on Monday in Córdoba, according to police sources. This arrest did not take place until the instructor decided to set him free with a ban on leaving the country because Moreno kept secret this separate piece of the case about alleged commissions in contracts to purchase masks during the pandemic. According to legal sources, the magistrate agreed to this secret piece to investigate bank accounts and practice the new search, which took place in a town in Córdoba.
The commander arrested is Rubén Villalba Carnerero, with years of experience in the fight against terrorism in the Information Service of the Civil Guard. A short time ago – a few months, according to the same sources -, he was assigned to the Spanish embassy in Venezuela as an Interior attaché. This position allowed him to have a diplomatic passport, which entails exemption from most airport controls, among other benefits. The judge of the National Court agreed yesterday to withdraw his passport.
The arrested civil guard is being investigated for crimes of belonging to a criminal organization and bribery. At the moment, he is not accused of a crime of revealing secrets for the alleged whispers that some agents could have given to the masterminds of the plot. In one of his interviews, using the telephone interventions as evidence, the judge points out that Ábalos’ former adviser believed he was being watched.
Civil Guard sources say that the arrested commander and Koldo García have been friends for years. In fact, in one of the UCO reports included in the summary, in a conversation between the former escort of former minister José Luis Ábalos and the alleged mastermind of the plot, Juan Carlos Cueto, they comment that a businessman in Venezuela wants assault Víctor de Aldama, the alleged facilitator. García explains that he had stayed with this businessman because he was going there “with a friend of his from the greens”, who is soon going there (referring to Caracas) for five years. The ex-advisor claims that he had “opened a couple of doors” in the civil guard. The UCO interprets that this reference to a “from the greens” would allude to “some member of the Civil Guard who has gone or should go to work for five years in Venezuela”, according to the report
In the report of the arrests carried out by the Civil Guard on February 21, it is detailed how the UCO found in Koldo García’s home a notebook with notes in which the ex-consultant made references to alleged income of money in metal, with a date. “23-01 metallic 10,000” or “28-01 rent 700”, can be read, among others, in the handwritten notes found in his home in Polop de la Marina (Alicante), where the researchers of the armed institute also found around 24,000 euros in cash during the search.
This is stated in a Civil Guard report to which La Vanguardia has had access dated February 22, a day after the UCO carried out twenty arrests coordinated by the National Court. During the search conducted on Víctor de Aldama, alleged facilitator of the scheme, the agents also confiscated 19,220 euros in cash from his home in Madrid and 4,300 euros from the headquarters of two companies linked to him. In the case of Civil Guard sub-lieutenant José Luis Rodríguez, who the judge places as a “key piece in the management of the investigated contracts”, his uniformed colleagues found 27,770 euros.
In the same report, the researchers highlight a WhatsApp chat titled “4 Musketeers”. In the chat there would be Aldama with three partners. The president of Zamora CF sent a message on October 25 in which he asked the rest to look at the tickets, “presumably money” according to the interpretation of the investigators, which they have in the Dominican Republic, “since Koldo’s brother is going there on Sunday”. “Let’s see what we can give him”, he adds. In this group also talking about contracts with the ministry after the contacts with Koldo: “We are in”.
