The former advisor of José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, received more than 26,000 euros as an “executive” of the PSOE between 2017 and 2019; dates in which his capera secretary of the organization of the socialists.
2018 was the year that Pedro Sánchez came to the Central Government after the motion to suspend Mariano Rajoy and Ábalos was appointed Minister of Transport. Koldo then went on to charge 70,000 euros for the position in the ministry.
All the income was accompanied by the pension of 20,000 euros for incapacity that he did not stop collecting all these years. In addition to the collection of the ministry and the pension, his salary was also nourished with 4,300 euros as a councilor of Renfe and 7,000 more euros from Ports de l’Estat. According to a report from the central operative unit of the Civil Guard (UCO) that analyzes Koldo’s working life, he received “in terms of payroll, subscriptions between 2017 and 2019 for a total of 26,619 euros that would have originated in PSOE It should be remembered that, according to Koldo García’s working life, he was discharged as PSOE executive from October 25, 2017 to June 12, 2018,” he explains.
In this report, the researchers make a study of Koldo’s income and its environment.
Both his wife and his brother Joseba had links with Transports. The investigative unit has focused on a contract – worth half a million euros – that Adif awarded on May 25, 2022 to a temporary union of companies (UTE) that had not yet been established. Once the union of companies was formalized, in November of the same year the entity dependent on the Ministry of Transport awarded another contract of 5.2 million euros.
But what really attracts the attention of researchers are two aspects. One, that before awarding the contracts, the then minister José Luis Ábalos, his advisor, Koldo García, and two of the company representatives met at the Parador de Granada. That appointment in the Andalusian city was on July 7, 2021, three days before Sánchez embarked on the Government crisis that removed his trusted man from the Council of Ministers. Two, that the analysis of the bank accounts of García’s wife, Patricia Uriz, reflects that she was used by one of the companies of the UTE, Áridos Anfersa, from 2022. “Specifically, less than two months later” of one of the awards. He received a total of 7,791 euros.
The Civil Guard has detected among its accounts payments from the former minister of around 14,000 euros, but also in reverse, from García to Ábalos, for a total of 26,274 euros. The former minister, provisionally suspended from militancy by the PSOE, has acknowledged the payments. However, the agents also caught the attention of the transfers made by the ex-escort to the ex-wives of Ábalos: three transfers between 2018 and 2019 for an amount of 2,512 euros.
There is another movement on which the UCO also puts the magnifying glass: a payment of nine transfers – for a total of 1,052 euros – which the ex-advisor made to a law firm of which the ex-PSOE deputy is a member at the Francis Romeu Congress. He is currently a member of the Governing Council of Ports of the State. The transfers took place between January 31, 2022 and January 16, 2023, when Ábalos was no longer in charge of Transport. The agents describe it as “coincidental” that Romeu is the owner of a house located in Madrid “where it has been seen that García spent the night several times”. From the analysis of the accounts of Joseba García, brother of Koldo, another 1,220 euros have also been detected in payments to the same law firm.
At the same time, the European Prosecutor’s Office, which already announced on Monday that it will investigate two contracts in the Koldo plot, will be supervised by the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón.
