BBVA admits that he knew since 2015 that he had hired Villarejo

BBVA admitted in its statement to the National Court last November that, at least since 2015, it was the ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo who was behind the Cenyt companies that had hired and paid more than 10 million for thirteen years. Moreover, the bank's legal representative, Adolfo Fraguas, confessed that there was a time when the entity feared about the illegality of the activities of the pillage since it was still active then. However, it also confirmed that, despite these alarms, BBVA did not initiate any investigation in this regard.

The certainty that the entity already knew in 2015 that it had hired Villarejo contrasts with the version of the former president of the bank, Francisco González, who has insured on several occasions, both through communiqués and judicial headquarters, that he did not know that the group The financier worked with the pillage until May 2018, when he learned from the press.

From alarm to tranquility

During the interrogation of the bank's legal representative, the judge asked Fraguas if BBVA, in 2015, worried about information that came out in the press that pointed out that the commissioner had a network of companies that he used as a cover for his illegal activity Fraguas says that if there was an alarm at the bank, the following month he was mitigated with other information published in the press that said the Interior Ministry had investigated the ex-commissioner's activity and said it was legal.

Surprised, the judge asked that why the bank was calm with information from a newspaper. “For the same reason that one thing could alert him, another could reassure him,” said Fraguas. According to the legal representative of the entity, it seemed sufficient to the bank that a newspaper said that Interior verified the legality of Villarejo so that the financial group did not open an investigation.

“Do you think that the highly qualified jurists who commanded the services of BBVA in 2015 should have been reassured (the information) so that no one would raise their hands and launch a thorough investigation?”, the judge asked. “That they will have to ask them, but there is evidence that if what worried was that Mr. Villarejo had or not authorization to carry out that activity it seems that yes, that he had it,” said Fraguas in his statement to which has had access the Economist.

The lawyer of the entity pointed out at another time in the statement that the ex-commissioner's activities could be compatible with his police status because he could have a “second activity”.

The documentation, in Guadalajara

On the other hand, BBVA kept most of the spying case information in a ship located in Azuqueca de Henares (Guadalajara). The bank has almost two million boxes with documents, of which 32,676 boxes were found that were related to the investigation. However, PWC, a consultant hired to carry out the forensic report, reduced the perimeter of analysis to 5,637 boxes, that is, to only 17% of the total found, based on the description of the contents contained in the boxes themselves.

Francisco González (BBVA) ordered not to appear in Villarejo's reports