Rodrigo Rato and his wife talk about prison, Luis Bárcenas and his new life: “We no longer use cards, we pay with our mobile phones”

It is now two and a half years since the former Bankia president was released from the Soto del Real prison, where he served a sentence imposed by the Supreme Court for the famous Black Cards Case. This Wednesday, Rodrigo Rato has presented his book So far we have comewhere he breaks his silence to tell for the first time what it was like to go from a Council of Ministers to a prison yard: “It’s a reckoning with myself.”

Accompanied by his wife, the journalist Alice Gonzalez, Rato has revealed that reliving those days has not been easy: “It has been very sad.” One of the worst, the day of the search at his home and his subsequent arrest: “That image was wanted to go around the world. The photographers were at my house before the police,” he recounted. “If mine (PP) had not governed, nothing would have happened to me because with the Socialist Party I never had that feeling of insecurity. Mine is not a unique story, we have seen that of Zaplana, that of Rita Barberá, that of Sandro Rossell …”.

????? Rodrigo Rato: “It has not been a reckoning, except with myself.”#YAS7Jun

Straight ?? https://t.co/Zbpc7aiHYM pic.twitter.com/ikKA3jVIda

— And Now Sonsoles (@YAhoraSonsoles) June 7, 2023

Serene, the former Minister of Economy has intoned the ‘mea culpa’: “I will never regret enough that I did not take a better look at what I was told was not a problem. Those cards were reviewed up to five times before what happened happened and nothing ever happened, the last time in 2012.” And he has revealed: “I returned 90,000 euros before the investigation began, I am the only one who went to jail who returned the money. Bankia called me to tell me that there were some charges that did not add up, they sent them to me and I paid them so as not to argue or create a scandal. Two months later, I find myself with my arrest “. With sarcasm, he has commented: “Now I don’t use cards, I pay everything with my phone, among other things, because I have everything seized.”

Life in prison: “I was in shock”

Mouse has remembered in And now Sonsoles How was your entry into Soto del Real: “The first night in jail, you don’t know where you are, you’re in shock, like you’ve hit yourself. I spent it with a card partner with whom I also shared walks around the patio. We were very wandering “. Despite the difficult situation, he adapted well to life behind bars:” I met Father Paulino and it is a privilege. His way of explaining the Gospel is very inspiring, because a mass in Soto is not just any mass. Paulino was from Barça and he played a very fun game with those from Madrid… he was very comforting. “He also had the friendship and advice of Luis Barcenas: “He became my image consultant. The day I got out of prison, He told me to put on a tie and not carry anything in my hands, clean hands. I listened to him so I left all my things there, they put them in garbage bags, and I went back for them another day.”

His wife, Alicia, has helped him write his work: “We wanted to tell what happened, a story that others have told but we have not. This will help to understand everything that has happened more. There have been several very complicated chapters. The theme of the record was very hard, it looked like something out of a movie”. And she recalled: “The first time I went to Soto to see my husband, I was with his children. We were scared because it is a world you don’t know, you don’t know the procedures… One of those times Rosalía, the wife of Luis Bárcenas, and offered us her telephone number, her help, advice… I will be grateful to her all my life”.