Audios recorded by Villarejo to Ferreras uncover the origin of the news about the false account of Pablo Iglesias

A conversation recorded by the former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and in which they participate together with the corrupt police officer, the director of the Sixth, Antonio García Ferreras and the director of Atresmedia, Mauricio Casals, has uncovered the origin of the false information published in various media outlets. communication about an alleged bank account opened by Pablo Iglesias and to which the Government of Nicolás Maduro would have transferred 227,000 euros.

The information was published on May 6, 2016 by Ok Diario under the following headline 'The Maduro government paid Pablo Iglesias $272,000 in the Grenadines tax haven in 2014', and various media outlets, including La Sexta, published after the Spanish police were investigating that alleged bank transfer after receiving information from the DEA.

One day after the news was published in Eduardo Inda's newspaper, elDiario.es revealed that it was false and that the alleged exclusive document provided by Ok Diario as proof of the payments was actually copied from YouTube. You may check that information here.

The conversation between Villarejo and Ferreras that he published this weekend the Free Chronicle medium takes place in March 2017, ten months after that information was published, and reveals its origin. During the talk, Ferreras assures Villarejo that when Inda published the information, he made his collaborator see that it seemed "gross" for Iglesias to open a bank account in his name so that the Venezuelan government would transfer the money. That it is one thing to say that they are Bolivarian, and that not even the leaders of Podemos deny that, and another to assume that the Maduro government has transferred funds to an account in a tax haven.

Ferreras: Who has put the bacalada? [A Eduardo Inda]

Villarejo: The DAO has given him the codfish, they have given it to him by Pino- [Eugenio Pino, Director Adjunto Operativo de la Policía, con quien Villarejo está gravemente enfrentado]Pino, it has gotten into him, Pino, which in turn has been provided by the guys from the... from the DEA, but...

F: But have they done it on purpose or not?

V: Eh… Well, him, uff, I don't know, do you know what's going on? That Eduardo I introduced him to Pino and all these people and such, but I've told him many times, Eduardo, don't trust these people. These people don't, I mean, they're not...

F: I told him “Eduardo, this is very serious, I'm going with it, but this is very delicate and it's too crude”.

W: Sure...

F: It's too crude, that is because I don't know...

V: They have a language.

F: These are Bolivarians, what a total these have been there. Of course they have never been hidden. Now I don't think Pablo Iglesias will open an account in the Grenadines in his name, two surnames so that Maduro, the day we write Podemos, sends him two hundred thousand euros, damn they are much smarter than all that. Moreover, they have been for a long time. Because, when I met them, I have been very critical of the Government of Venezuela for a long time, very critical. When Hugo Chavez was there, eh? and I had problems in Ser because I was very critical of Hugo Chávez, because I also know, I have had some relationship there with some journalist from there, who is a businesswoman and such, who is not precisely from the Venezuelan Government. And I'm very critical and all that, but I tell him: “Fuck, Eduardo, this is…Fuck, no, man, no”. He tells me: 7 years ago Pablo Iglesias received such and such at the Foundation... Let's go for sure, for sure and from Ecuador and Bolivia I don't know what, but uncle in the name of such and above with the mother ahead. He also told me about the Cuban intelligence services, uncle, the Cubans. No, no...And someone has told me that the Cubans aren't doing anything to the Americans, in spite of everything. That now it is true that there is a thaw and such, but that nothing is happening to them.

The conversation is after the broadcast of the news in La Sexta, which quoted the information from Ok Diario accompanied by the denial of Pablo Iglesias, who already that day said that it was based on a fabricated argument.

The day after the publication of the information, elDiario.es revealed that the document, which was posing as a police investigation by Spain and the American anti-drug agency, had been copied from a YouTube channel belonging to a Venezuelan opposition figure. And that same morning, elDiario.es also reported that the bank where the Iglesias account was supposed to be had categorically denied it.

In the talk with the commissioner, Ferreras also cites a conversation he had about Villarejo with Pablo Iglesias himself, after this information was published. The director of the Sixth relates that he explained to Pablo Iglesias that Commissioner Villarejo himself had told him a posteriori that the information from the account in the Grenadian Islands "was not good and was contaminated." The journalist explains a previous conversation with Iglesias in which he told the politician that the news came from elsewhere without explaining where. According to the conversation with Villarejo, the origin of the information was the deputy operational director of the Police, Eugenio Pino, who had supposedly obtained it from the DEA.

When asked by elDiario.es, sources from the Sixth assure that it is “absolutely false that the chain offered that information knowing that it was a lie”. “What's more, when that news is offered for the first time, of the alleged account in the Grenadines, Iglesias immediately comes out in the Sixth to deny it. The conversation with the commissioner therefore takes place months after the appearance of the news in Spain and in Miami. And that is when Villarejo expresses his doubts about the credibility of the documents they handle in the police, ”explain those same sources who ask review the network's coverage of this case.

Iglesias defends that the talk by former commissioner Villarejo and journalist Antonio García Ferreras "reveals the level of rottenness in the PP, in judicial, police and journalism sectors," he said this Saturday night on the TV3 program Faqs.

Ferreras tells Villarejo that he knew that the “news” about “my account in the Grenadines” that “his brother” Inda gave him was false, but that he gave it anyway. He should never work as a journalist again

Here the audios 👇🏻https://t.co/dfCi4itU7I pic.twitter.com/eX2x4BvIr3

– Pablo Iglesias 🔻 (@PabloIglesias) July 9, 2022

fabrication of false evidence

In the audios released this weekend, both Villarejo and the director of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime, José Luis Olivera, hint that they would be able to create false bank accounts for Iglesias or any other person, and jokingly cite José Luis Cebrián, former president of Grupo Prisa, as an example. To which Ferreras replies that he does not believe that this is very legal and that in his code, no matter how enemy he may be, these things are not done. This is the excerpt from the conversation:

Olivera: That it is not very expensive to put an account on Pablo Iglesias from 5 years ago. Hey? and then explain.

Villarejo: We do that to you with the tail as well.

Ferreras: Man, that doesn't seem very legal...

[...]

V: It means that it is not difficult at all, what happens is that in life you have to have the sensitivity of a violinist, for when it comes to... but do things serious. Sure.

Casals: What they are telling you is that if necessary, it will be done with Cebrián.

Ferreras: You already know that in my code if it hasn't been done, even if it's my enemy, I don't want to...

Iglesias has also referred to this passage to underline the seriousness that two police officers had admitted that false evidence can be fabricated against political parties.