The Government says that the ECB has not transferred concerns about the BBVA case
The European Central Bank has not transmitted for the moment concern to the Government about the supposed espionage of the BBVA commissioned to the ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, according to sources of the Executive.
The same sources have indicated that they are following the matter, which may have a criminal perspective, and acknowledge that it does not benefit the bank's reputation in any way.
The government spokesperson, Isabel Celaá, said at the press conference of the last Council of Ministers that the Executive is making its own analysis on the case of wiretaps ordered by BBVA to former police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and that it will be ready "in brief".
The BBVA has acknowledged that in June 2018 it initiated an investigation into the hiring and services provided between 2012 and 2017 by Grupo Cenyt, a Villarejo company, which according to press reports included wiretaps to businessmen and members of the Government.
However, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has documentation that includes a series of punctures and follow-up operations that mark the beginning of relations between BBVA and Cenyt in 2004, when Sacyr intended to take control of the entity.
The bank would have accessed more than 15,000 telephone conversations of senior officials of the then government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2011), as well as politicians, CNMV officials, businessmen, and even journalists and executives of the entity.
BBVA has broadened its investigation, although up to now it has not been aware of the punctures, and has considered that, if true, it would be undoubtedly "very serious" and "deplorable" behaviors.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is waiting to receive the police report on the eavesdropping allegedly carried out by BBVA in Villarejo, within the framework of the "Operation Trap", a separate piece of the so-called Tandem case that the National Court instructs.
