A potentially mammoth scandal is engulfing the Spanish government after an adult star was found fleeing the house of an ex-minister with a ‘bombshell’ hard drive hidden in her knickers.
Police had arrived at the home of Jose Luis Abalos, the former right hand man of Sanchez, to search it as part of the ongoing Koldo Case.
The major corruption investigation is centered on Koldo García Izaguirre, a former adviser to then Transport Minister Abalos.
García is accused of orchestrating a network of bribery, influence peddling, and embezzlement tied to emergency public contracts for masks and medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Garcia and Koldo are accused of hiring prostitutes into government positions as a way of paying them, among a litany of other crimes.
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This week, recordings of their conversations, in which Abalos talked about how he loved to bite them, shocked the nation.
No surprise then, that when officers arrived at the home of Abalos on June 10, they found he was spending time with a female adult star.
The UCO arm of the Guardia Civil raided the home, only to discover what they were looking for a – a crucial pen drive – hidden down the woman’s knickers.
They claimed she tried to leave the house with a ‘blue external hard drive’ hidden in her underwear under the guise of taking the dog for a walk.
An officer noticed how Abalos asked the woman to walk the dog during the search and to take ‘some breakfast’ with her.
She then went into ‘one of the rooms of the house,’ and ‘before leaving,’ police noticed that the woman was carrying ‘something hidden in her pants’.
It has now been revealed that the external hard drive Abalos intended to hide contains more messages between socialist leaders and the Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez. The contents continue to be analysed.
After the revelation, Sanchez completely cleared his schedule for today and cancelled his appearance at the Workers’ Commissions Congress.
In total, police seized 34 pieces of digital evidence and five documents at Abalos’s home alone.
One of these is an external hard drive that a third person who was in the apartment at the time of the search had allegedly tried to remove without being seen.
The Guardia Civil identifies her as Anais, who on social media identifies herself as a model and also as an X-rated actress.
The Guardia Civil have seized more than 200 hard discs from Koldo, with fears among Socialists about what else he may have been recorded.
There are rumours that conversations involving Queen Letizia are among the recordings.
The tapes have already exposed major corruption among the upper echelons of the PSOE.
Sanchez publicly apologised last week following the sudden resignation of his close ally and PSOE’s Secretary of Organisation, Santos Cerdan, who was named in a bribery investigation involving public contracts.
Cerdan resigned after it became clear he had been implicated in an ongoing investigation by the Guardia Civil’s Central Operational Unit (UCO), which links him to a public works bribery scheme alongside Abalos and Koldo Garcia.
Recordings from the Koldo tapes suggest Cerdan may have been involved in discussions about illegal commissions, as well as vote tampering during the PSOE’s 2014 internal primaries.
Appearing at a press conference at the PSOE headquarters, Sanchez said: ‘I want to apologise to the citizens, members and supporters of this party… Until this morning, I trusted his integrity.’
The resignation came just hours after Sanchez met with Cerdan, following growing media coverage of the UCO’s findings. The PSOE’s coalition partners Sumar had already called for Cerdan to step down.
Though visibly concerned, Sanchez said at the time that he had no plans to resign or dissolve Parliament, and that the broader Executive will remain unchanged.
He announced plans to restructure the federal executive team in early July and to launch an external audit of PSOE’s accounts.
Sanchez admitted he had resisted removing Cerdan previously, even when accusations surfaced months ago.
He said he had hoped to make a change at the party’s next congress in December, but circumstances forced him to act now.
Asked about the personal fallout, Sanchez called Cerdan’s involvement a ‘huge disappointment,’ adding: ‘I’ve known him since 2014. We worked side by side. I believe in clean politics, and I feel let down.’
Cerdan has also resigned from his seat in Parliament. With his political immunity gone, he is expected to testify before the Supreme Court on July 25, after a judge found strong indications of his involvement in rigged contract awards in Navarre.
