Germà Gordó, former CDC manager and former right-hand man of Mas, in an archive image.Toni Albir (EFE)
The Criminal Chamber of the National Court of Justice has ordered the reopening of the investigation into the alleged irregular donations made by senior officials of the defunct CDC (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia) to the party itself in the form of smurfing – a money laundering technique consisting of depositing small amounts of money into a checking account deposit so as not to attract the attention of the agencies. In an order signed on September 8, the court upheld an appeal by the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office and overturned the decision of the investigating judge Santiago Pedraz, who had ordered the investigation to be archived last June due to a lack of evidence. This summary is a derivative of the 3% case, which concerns the alleged irregular financing of the political force and is still before the courts.
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Given Pedraz’s criteria, the Chamber considers there is enough evidence on the table to “continue the investigation” into the smurfing that has kept a dozen former high-ranking CDC officials under suspicion, including former treasurers Daniel Osàcar and Andreu Viloca ; former manager Germà Gordó, who was justice minister and right-hand man of former Catalan president Artur Mas; and former regional councilors Felip Puig, Irene Rigau, Jordi Jané and Pere Macias. As the court’s order states, the investigator must now reopen the case and request the “timely” reports to “determine the existence of possible criminal behavior related to the crime of money laundering”, as well as request documents on the defendant’s bank movements on dates close to the donations.
Prosecutors suspect that Convergència concocted a complex illegal financing scheme. And among other things, he gave several of his leaders money that he had received irregularly – for example from businessmen who expected something in return – with the aim that these high officials would pay it into the party in the form of a donation. in order to introduce it into the “legal economic cycle”. “[Habría] Donations by companies to foundations directly related to civic education, which would constitute real bribery behavior in order to obtain the award of contracts by public organizations dependent on the Catalan Generalitat, in such a way that “The people in question from the specified party play a decisive role in influencing the Catalan government for the benefit of the donor companies,” adds Anticorrupción in the summary.
However, Pedraz decided last June to archive these investigations – the main part of the 3% case went to trial in 2022. The examining magistrate was of the opinion that he did not have enough evidence to put those accused of smurfing in the dock; In his opinion, there is “no evidence” that the suspicious donations are a “mechanism for the creation of black money”. “There is also no evidence that the money that could have been handed over to the militants was of illegal origin, and even if this were the case, investigators would have been aware that the money delivered was allegedly from a previous crime,” the judge pointed out that the case should be closed temporarily.
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