BBVA withdraws its accusation in the case of the alleged extortion of Ausbanc

BBVA has decided to withdraw its accusation against the Association of Users of Banking Services (Ausbanc) and its president, Luis Pineda, for allegedly orchestrating a criminal organization dedicated to extorting banks and businesses.

The bank has withdrawn the private accusation that exerted in the case that will come to trial in the National Court on September 23 in which the prosecution requests 118 years and 5 months in prison for Pineda, 21 years and 11 months for his wife, María Teresa Cuadrado, and almost 25 years for the secretary general of Manos Limpias, Miguel Bernad.

He also asks about 12 years in prison for Virginia López Negrete, the lawyer who accused the infanta in Nóos, one of the cases that allegedly used the plot to extort money from banks in order to withdraw accusations.

Sources of the BBVA have indicated to Efe that the presence of the bank "contributes nothing in this final stage of the judgment that begins after summer". Moreover, they added, "the presence can be an unnecessary distraction that hinders the process."

The bank's announcement comes the day after Pineda, the main defendant in the case, filed a lawsuit against former BBVA president Francisco González, former commissioner José Villarejo and the entity itself.

Pineda argues that the case for which he spent in pretrial detention for more than three years is the result of a plot executed by ex-commissioner Villarejo and promoted by Francisco González, since he was winning legal cases against abusive bank clauses.

He has filed the complaint in the midst of the round of summons that the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón is making to take statements from several responsible and exalted BBVA charges as investigated in a secret piece about the espionage that the entity had ordered the former commissioner .

A year and a half ago, in February 2018, Pineda requested that testimony be deduced from BBVA, which he accused of submitting documentation after the deadline. The response of the National Court was emphatic in its response and reproached him for an "inadmissible law fraud" as a consequence of his personal "struggle" against the entity.