💰 Pay-to-Play Scandal Hits PP

Plus: Franco's secrets law gets buffed, Spain buys Chinese cameras, and Ayuso's vacation chalet.

Madrid | Issue #112

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Another party bites the dust

💶 The Montoro Case: The Scandal Shaking the Old PP and Fueling the Far Right

Hey kids, welcome to corruption story time! 📖 Today’s tale is Pay-to-Play in the PP, and our main character looks just like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons (for you Gen Zers, that’s a really old cartoon!).

• Mr. Burns is thrilled because he and his pals run a company that offers “consulting,” which means helping businesses make more money. Do you like money? We do. 🤑

• One day, the Mighty Bossman of Madrilandia calls and offers Burns a new job: Prince of Money. Burns says yes so fast he nearly cries, leaves his company, moves to Madrilandia, and gets to work.

• The Prince of Money is a generous friend. Businesses keep paying his old firm for “consulting,” and the Prince kindly writes rules that help them make more money (he is the Prince of Money, after all). Everybody’s happy—because that’s the best “consulting” anyone’s ever had!

Hmmm, that smells a bit fishy 🐟. Doesn't it?

That’s the scandal du jour (or du week). The Bossman is former PM Mariano Rajoy (PP) and the Prince of Money is Cristóbal Montoro—his Finance minister from 2011 to 2018. And late last week, a judge in Tarragona (Cataluña) finally unsealed a case accusing Montoro and 27 others (though not Rajoy) of modifying tax rules to benefit gas businesses that hired Montoro’s old firm, Equipo Económico. A firm he may not have totally left, if you get our drift.

• The pay. Five gas companies—Air Liquide, Carburos Metálicos, Messer, Praxair, and Abelló Linde—paid €780,000 to Equipo Económico between 2013 and 2015.

• The play. In 2014, Montoro’s ministry introduced a tax break for companies using electricity to make industrial and medicinal gases—i.e., exactly those five companies. The Agencia Tributaria says the reform slashed €14m from state revenues. A judge called the link between payments and policy “especially relevant from a criminal perspective.” (Understatement of the week.)

• Did Montoro really leave? In 2008, Montoro sold his 1,800 shares in Equipo Económico for €18,000, which the tax man says was well below market rate. The judge’s filings suggests it was “a sham operation” to allow him to keep control of the firm without appearing on the org chart. One email caught in the case spells it out: “The most direct route, as always, is to pay this Equipo Económico, which has direct contact with Finance Minister Cristóbal M." 🤔

• But there’s more! Shocker—prosecutors think Montoro is using front business to hide money. And this is just one of several shady deals he’s accused of! 🤯

• Obligatory denial: Who, me? Montoro has denied any wrongdoing and claims the court’s decision to investigate him lacks “any evidentiary basis”. 🤔 He also says it’s conveniently timed to distract from “the real scandals currently affecting the Spanish government.”

This being Spain 2025, you can imagine what happened next. Things blew up! 💥

• Leveling the battlefield. In case you’ve forgotten (you didn’t), the ruling PSOE has been on the defensive for weeks over that explosive police report accusing former party #3, Santos Cerdán, of crazy corruption (not to mention the corruption scandals of two other associates of PM Pedro Sánchez, José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García). So now the socialists see a chance to flip the script.

• You say ‘tomato’… Sánchez, who is desperately trying to regain some moral ground, made a distinction between the “systemic corruption” under PP governments and the “isolated cases” currently affecting his party. Um, sure…

• Reframe the story. Sánchez accused the PP of having legislated “for commissions, for the benefit of an elite,” while claiming his own government is a beacon of “political autonomy” and public interest. Again, sure…

The timing couldn’t be much worse for the PP, which had hoped to capitalize on the PSOE’s scandals to weaken Sánchez’s fragile coalition and force early elections. But the Montoro madness has given the Socialists a new tool to try to revive parliamentary support from key allies like ERC, Junts, and the PNV.

Nothing to see here. PP boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo is doing his best to make it look like someone else’s problem. After a few days of silence, he appeared on social media with a blunt message: “What needs to be investigated, should be investigated.” (Pretty different from the fiery rhetoric he regularly uses to go after Sánchez.)

• Montoro’s shadow. The problem with looking the other way? Despite the party’s efforts to say “this was seven years ago” and that it has no relation with the current PP, several members of the former minister’s old economic inner circle are now part of Feijóo’s economic team or advisory network.

• Haven’t talked to him in years. Faced with questions, Feijóo has shifted from defensive silence to proactive distancing, reminding people that Montoro hasn’t had any role in the PP for years (which is technically true).

So are there winners? Well, yes. Far-right Vox is using the latest corruption scandals to push the idea that the PSOE and PP are equally corrupt, interchangeable, and out of touch (just as it already claimed they were indistinguishable on immigration and EU policy). And the mix of Montoro and Cerdán certainly makes that an easier sell.

• We’re the new product! Vox hopes to benefit from the collapse of trust in Spain’s two traditional parties. And while it’s still too early to tell if the strategy will work, a recent Catalan poll—released before the Montoro case broke—already showed a surge in support for far-right parties, both regional and national.

• Ethics lesson. Party boss San Diego Obescal Santiago Abascal says it’s “ridiculous, shameful, and insulting” to treat the Montoro case as an isolated incident and warned Feijóo that any future deal with Vox would require a serious commitment to “honesty and integrity.”

• They love a lawsuit. In fact, Vox has joined the Montoro case as a private prosecutor, just as they’ve done with the PSOE’s corruption scandals. The goal? Distance themselves from the establishment—and reap the political rewards.

Vox is betting that outrage will translate into votes. The question now is whether voters see them as the clean alternative—or just a gang of bull and immigrant-obsessed nutters.

More news below. 👇👇

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties

1. 🔎 Franco’s secrets just want to be free

(First, a note to anyone who groans when writers bring up Franco for no reason: this time, we swear the story is actually about Franco.)

Pedro Sánchez’s government has revived a dusty legislative project to replace Spain’s 1968 Official Secrets Law—a relic from the teacup tyrant himself—with a shiny new system for declassification. The proposal promises automatic unsealing of documents 45 years or older, which means everything before 1981—including the dictatorship and the Transición to democracy after the Generalísimo’s 1975 death—could soon be open to public view.

• This is sort of thrilling. Not just because we think the truth is the best antiseptic (or something like that), but also because we have a slightly shameful urge to find out who ratted on the neighbor to snag their flat. Real estate’s a tough sport.

• The bill is a longtime ask from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), and this push stems from a February promise Sánchez made to outgoing PNV congressional speaker Aitor Esteban. (Think of it as a parting gift.)

• The goal: align with NATO and EU standards, while phasing out Spain’s permanent-secrecy habit. So no more pretending a 1976 parking permit threatens national security.

How will the declassification work? Documents will fall into four categories, ranging from “restricted” to “highly secret.” Each comes with its own expiry timer: Restricted: 4–5 years; Confidential: 7–9 years; Secret: 35 years, extendable to 45; High secret: 45 years, extendable to 60 😱.

• Maybe don’t celebrate just yet. You see, the bill also includes stiff penalties for anyone who leaks—or even accidentally accesses—classified info, journalists included.

• Crazy fines. Fines run up to €2.5 million for publishing “high secret” material. Even a “restricted” scoop could cost you €30,000. While the text nods to “freedom of information” as a mitigating factor, judges will get to decide whether reporters should be punished. (Yes, we’re side-eyeing that hard. 👀) We like gasp-inducing leaks—Panama Papers or Pentagon Papers, anyone?

• Also worrying. One clause lets authorities preemptively shut down the spread of secrets if they deem it urgent, opening the door to what some call prior censorship (which the Constitution, technically, bans).

The bureaucratic fog has lifted. Until recently, the government claimed this kind of mass declassification was too bureaucratically complex. In an earlier version of this bill, you had to already know what document you wanted, and explain in detail why—without ever having seen it. Super-convenient, right?

Hmmm. So, why now? Let us roll out a theory. The Sánchez government announced the declassification as it’s trying to dissuade voters from looking at the corruption clouds around the PM’s inner circle. The Trump administration just released the MLK Jr. files as the Orange Guy is trying to get people from talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Just saying.

• That said, if transparency is a tool for distraction, hey—we’ll take it. Just, like, don’t fine us for publishing what we find.

The bill will be fast-tracked via emergency decree (because Spain doesn’t pass laws normally anymore), and then go to Parliament.

2. 🐂 Murder? Art? You be the judge

Photo by Mason C on Unsplash

Oh, boy. We try to stay away from this sensitive and triggering subject, but whatever, we’re feeling adventurous this week.

A single word in a Sanfermines (i.e. the running of the bulls) news segment on July 6 ignited a cultural controversy earlier this month about bullfighting, journalism, and who tells Spain’s story. This week, it ended in an apology.

• During the nightly news show Teleberri, on the Basque Country’s public broadcaster EITB, a segment featuring bulls that would run ended with a reporter saying that after running in the morning the animals would be “murdered” in the afternoon.

• Well, I never…! Those who enjoy Spain’s embattled bullfighting world dropped their monocles saw the expression as (very!) insulting, and the news segment immediately became…a national culture war. 🥳

Immediate backlash. The National Association of Bull-related Shows Organizers (ANOET) accused the reporting of being “sectarian and biased” and asked for an immediate retraction.

• Art, man—not sport! You see, bullfighting is protected under Spanish law as part of the country’s cultural heritage (which is true) and must be treated respectfully by publicly funded broadcasters (which is more of an opinion, but OK). This is why you see it in the culture pages, and not in sport.

• No, you can’t. In their words, ANOET said that “a network funded by all Basque citizens cannot take an anti-taurine stance.”

Didn’t expect that. EITB responded immediately to the complaint and acknowledged that the word “murdered” was “totally inappropriate” for a news segment.

• Whoops! They also admitted it violated standards of impartiality and assured the public that the journalist responsible had been contacted to prevent similar editorial choices in the future.

The end.

Ha! Kidding. No, by then the whole thing had become a flashpoint in Spain’s long-running (and still unresolved) identity crisis over bullfighting. Is it art or cruelty? Cultural tradition or relic? And who gets to write the national narrative?

• The op-eds started. “Murder on the screen”, said a commentator on the anti-taurine El Diario, while pro-bullfighting The Objective presented a column that criticized how a Basque TV presenter, “paid by the vilest ideology this country has produced”, had “humiliated the bulls with his own pitiful sense of comedy.”

Where does the Spanish population stand on bullfighting? Continuing a long trend, several polls published earlier this year suggest most people are against it.

• What’s bullfighting? A BBVA study conducted in February said 7-in-10 Spaniards don’t like it. A poll run by Sigma Dos for El Mundo (center-right) said 78% of Spaniards do not follow bullfighting, but only 48% of them want it to stop being a cultural thing.

• Shocker! Not. It’ll be no surprise to learn that, according to Sigma Dos, the parties with the most bullfighting supporters are Vox (37.6%) and the PP (31.3%). Though even on the right, we’d like to note, bullfighting falls well short of 50%.

But, but, but… Don’t rush to declare the death of bullfighting, as other recent polls suggest younger audiences are suddenly being drawn to it. 🤷

3. 📸 Spain’s got Chinese cameras—and the U.S.? Unhappy

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PM Sánchez has been cozying up to China while the Orange Menace’s America spirals into full-on Beijing-phobia. This week, those trains collided—and it wasn’t pretty.

• Dear Tulsi. The drama kicked off Thursday when Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Rick Crawford—Trumpy Republicans who chair the intel committees—sent a letter to U.S. intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard (yup, that Tulsi) urging her to review intel sharing with Spain. And not in a nice way. The reason? Spain’s Interior Ministry reportedly handed a €12.3m contract to Huawei to provide servers for the Guardia Civil’s wiretap system.

• What⁉️ Which prompted the lawmakers to basically yell: “Wait, Spain gave China access to its police surveillance system?” And you know what? Even a broken Trumpist clock…

• In their words. Huawei has “deep ties” to China’s Communist Party and is legally obligated to share whatever info the CCP wants. So, they warned, China could have backdoor access to a NATO ally’s police wiretap systems—"monitoring Spanish investigations of CCP spies and innumerable other intelligence activities.” 🫨

How big a thing is this? The question of whether the U.S. would stop sharing intelligence with Spain is above our pay grade. But let’s just say that the Huawei contract was just the start.

• Lots of 📸. After the letter, Spanish media unearthed years’ of contracts between Spain’s government and Chinese surveillance firms—especially Hikvision, whose cameras are watching the perimeter of Moncloa (yes, the PM’s compound), Interior, Hacienda, and Renfe. The cameras are banned in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and much of Europe for being—what’s the word?—spyware.

So what’s the risk? Depends on who you ask. Spain says its procurement process met all EU security standards. And it’s true that the UCO—the Guardia Civil’s organized crime unit—isn’t exactly storing CIA secrets. But the U.S. isn’t thrilled, and now it's threatening to limit intel sharing. Because once China’s in the server room, who knows what they’re watching?

• A spook speaks. Ex-U.S. head of counterintelligence William Evanina called it giving the CCP “the keys of its intel kingdom” and added, “My goodness no,” while U.K.-based security studies professor Phillips O’Brien wrote, “There are states that don’t take security seriously, states that really don’t take security seriously, and states that really really don’t take security seriously… And then there is Spain.” OUCH! 😵

• So who else bans this stuff? The U.S. blacklisted Huawei and Hikvision years ago. Canada told Hikvision to fuck off leave the country earlier this year. The European Parliament ripped Hikvision’s cameras off the walls (literally). Australia and the U.K. have also raised red flags.

• Spain’s response? Basically, “No pasa nada.” Interior insists everything’s fine and these are not the droids you’re looking for (google that phrase, kids!). The hardware is secure. The rules were followed. Hikvision? They call drama over their gear “unfounded bias.” And sure, maybe. But Spain now finds itself in the awkward position of defending a CCP-linked tech stack to an increasingly paranoid NATO ally bully.

So, time for a Sánchez–Trump hug? Not exactly. Especially since Sánchez’s been trolling Trump, fighting with Bibi, and dragging his feet on NATO defense spending. Intelligence sharing was one thing still working in the Spain-U.S. relationship. Let’s see how long that lasts.

4. 🏡 Ayuso’s Tupperware and the €4.3 million chalet

Spanish politics is technically on vacation (please let it stay that way), but just before shutting down for the summer, one last story dropped—and it stars Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a “secret” weekend in a €4.3m mountain chalet, and a Tupperware.

• Big news! 🗞️ Last Friday, El País revealed that earlier this month Ayuso had spent a quiet weekend with family at a luxury chalet—pool, pine forest, Peñalara views—tucked inside a 453-hectare estate in the Sierra de Guadarrama. The estate was purchased by her government in 2023 with public funds, to expand the national park. The process is still years from completion, but Ayuso apparently decided it was already suitable for personal R&R.

• So what’s wrong with a little vacay? It’s not that she stayed in a publicly owned house—it’s that she didn’t disclose it, El País found out through neighbors, and she’s made political hay out of mocking PM Sánchez for vacationing in official state residences. Remember when she called Doñana and La Mareta “palaces” paid for by taxpayers? So now the left is calling her a hypocrite. (Fair.)

Come at me, bro. Ayuso, furious that the press is even talking about it (see video above), insists she didn’t cost the public a cent. “I brought my own food,” she said, explaining she even brought (and ate from!) her own Tupperware.

• Witch hunt! “I bought groceries at the Covirán (a supermarket) and dined in a village restaurant...This is how communist dictatorships work,” she said, invoking Venezuela’s chavismo and accusing the left of trying to “destroy her personally.”

• Four ⛫! She also dismissed the accusations of hypocrisy and argued that two days in a government-owned home doesn’t compare to Sánchez’s “four palaces.”

Opposition hits back. Local lefties at Más Madrid are very angry about this and have proposed a new law to ban regional leaders from using public properties for personal enjoyment. PSOE, meanwhile, is demanding a guided tour of the chalet to “visually assess” how modest this mountain hideaway really is (scheduled for July 31).

• Fuel to the fire. On top of it all, PSOE is demanding to know not only who gave her the keys to the property, but also whether Ayuso’s partner, Alberto González Amador, was present that weekend. (Rewind: Amador has been indicted for tax fraud and document forgery. Spain’s tax man says he defrauded over €350,000.)

• He said, she said. The regional government says the stay was normal and permitted, citing “austerity” and “security needs.” But critics say it’s just more “freeloader” Ayusoism: talk like a libertarian, live like a queen.

Our take? The optics aren’t great, but it doesn’t appear she broke any laws. This is a political scandal, not a legal one. And while there are plenty of reasons to scrutinize Ayuso’s governance, this weekend getaway isn’t exactly Watergate in the Woods.

5. 👮 Just 10 days from freedom, ‘tattoo fugitive’ is caught

Source: Policía Nacional

He nearly got away with it. Álvaro Pasquín Mora, the so-called fugitivo de los tatuajes, had spent five years in hiding after skipping out on a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a 20-year-old in Madrid in 2017. He was convicted in 2020 but never showed up for his sentence—and on July 31, 2025, his crime was set to expire.

• Not what he was expecting. But instead of freedom, Pasquín got a surprise visit from the Policía Nacional on Tuesday morning. Agents tracked him down to a crumbling shed in Colonia Jardín, Madrid, hidden behind tall walls and tangled vegetation on a farm that belonged to an old man he’d befriended.

• Living under cover. He’d been living there in isolation since 2020—his only companion a cat, his only human contact the delivery drivers who unknowingly brought food to his false identity. He’s grown his hair out and dyed it reddish-blonde.

• …leaving no trail (he thought). Pasquín avoided social media and family. He also paid for everything with a stolen ID and ran small-time online resale schemes to fund his life in limbo. His goal was simple: Survive until the clock ran out.

Counting the days. When police finally closed in—thanks to digital forensics (he was taking online classes to train up for his life in freedom) and tipoffs via their Most Wanted campaign—Pasquín didn’t resist. He just asked to call his mom, whom he hadn’t spoken to in years. Investigators say he admitted he was counting down the days. He thought he’d make it.

• But no dice. 🎲 With one last push from the fugitive unit, he’s now behind bars and the statute of limitations is irrelevant. No word if he tried to make some Scooby Doo joke and say “I would have gotten away with it except for you meddling kids.” (Again… google that, kids!)

• And that nickname. Pasquín had lots of tattoos on his sides, legs, and forearms. The most notable? One on his chest saying, La suerte está echada—”The die is cast.” Which seems about right in this case.

Pasquín was the 6th captured on Los 10 más buscados (and no buscadas) list—launched last summer to crowdsource tips on high-priority fugitives. These four remain at large:

• Baltasar Vilar Durán, 68, aka Saro, a longtime narco with 45 years of pending jail time

• Alberto Severo De Sousa, 53, wanted for murdering his partner in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia

• Segundo Cousido Vieites, 43, a former religion teacher convicted of abusing six minors

• José Manuel Canela Vázquez, 50, known as Ferramache, considered a major hashish trafficker in Huelva

Got a tip? 🕵️ The Policía want your help. You can contact them—confidentially—at losmasbuscados@policia.es.

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