When the Civil Guard investigators immersed themselves in the Koldo plot, the enormous well of alleged corruption linked to the upper echelons of the PSOE, which has already earned a first conviction for the former Government minister and Pedro Sánchez's number two, one name seemed like the parsley of all sauces, and it was none other than Cristian Corvillo.
But as the months went by and aimed at identifying crimes, the agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) left behind the figure of Corvillo, just a provincial cadre of the Cordoban PSOE, and focused on his great partner as an intermediary, who also from the first moment made the decision to collaborate with Justice: Víctor de Aldama.
However, the return of Corvillo to the target after his arrest two weeks ago, in an operation that investigators consider "complementary" - in reality, bribes for three contracts would have been channeled through him, two of them not of large amounts, and Ábalos and his "girlfriend", Andrea, would have been entertained - allowed a reality to be uncovered in these days: the great closeness of Sánchez with all the members of the plot, and even the fact that it was the President of the Government himself who It favored the reactivation of this plot in 2023, politically rehabilitating José Luis Ábalos, and allowing the group an extra time of life when the State spotlight was already on their misdeeds.
Koldo García and Víctor de Aldama met when the PSOE came to power, shortly after June 2018. Before, when the Government was being formed, Santos Cerdán wrote to Koldo what cadres he needed within the Ministry of Development that Ábalos was going to head, and his conviction that "without that, nothing will be possible." Investigators believe they sought to place their sleepers in the decision-making centers to later benefit by twisting decisions.
The plot, in short, starts with that landing in power and takes cruising speed with the great opportunity: the Covid-19 pandemic. There the tentacles of the triumvirate obtain contracts worth 53 million taking advantage of the general confusion, while Aldama, together with Koldo, the hinge between them all, launches into a large alleged VAT fraud on gasoline with several partners (including Claudio Rivas), a business of more than 180 million that proceeds to be linked to the PSOE group: a villa is bought from Ábalos to obtain a hydrocarbon operator license.
There appears Corvillo, a initially regional character in the Córdoba PSOE, and who had already shown the ability to get close to the best shadow: he had driven for Sánchez in 2017, in his reconquest of the party, and even according to several sources he had hosted him in his house.
Associated with Koldo García, Corvillo had managed to be invested by Sánchez as one of his trusted men in the very Susana Córdoba (of Susana Díaz, his rival in the primaries), and probably due to pure friction with the group Cristian appears in those years as one of Aldama's alleged front men in his gas station fraud. He also becomes an intimate of this - to the point that, according to several statements before the Benemérita, Aldama would have paid Corvillo for his services with an apartment in the center of Córdoba in his name, and would be the only front man that the intermediary would not have left in the lurch.
At the same time, the agents would end up detecting that Corvillo, making maneuvers of dubious legality (for example, he intervened in the purchase of the villa from Ábalos), was considered, in an inappropriate manner for such a low position, by none other than Santos Cerdán, the man to whom Sánchez would hand over the power of the party after the fall of Ábalos. Thus, already in April 2021, Cerdán wrote to Koldo García, UCO hunter: "I know that you are a friend of Cristian, but make no mistake, be careful what you say about me." Conclusion: those who are accused today, if not convicted, then had Corvillo as an equal.
Ábalos falls in July 2021 in a way that has never been explained (Sánchez removes him from all his positions), but five years later it seems more than evident that someone must have investigated and alerted the president. However, the now convicted man continued to be the great figurehead of the group, and his rehabilitation was the great objective.
And we come to this week: the conversation between Corvillo and Sánchez, alone, for 35 minutes and in which "everything" was "strange" for the Córdoba PSOE team, plays a thunderous role in the iter of the events. When it occurs, in April 2023, the Treasury is already on Aldama and the investigations into the mask contracts are already going from strength to strength, and will emerge a year later.
Sánchez, therefore, could perfectly well have been aware of the terrain he was treading on, and not only because, as will be seen years later, his close collaborators were participating in the events, one of the few who supported him in the epic of the red Peugeot that he returned to Ferraz and ended up breaking into Moncloa: Ábalos, Cerdán, Koldo, now even Corvillo. The thing is that the State itself already had its eyes on the band.
The president has repeatedly denied knowing anything about what was discovered by the UCO in recent years. Of course, he has also denied, a few days ago, even knowing Corvillo, of which there is both graphic testimony - the photos themselves, of a certain intimacy, that the Córdoban posted on social networks - and writings: the WhatsApps in which the local politician tells Aldama of his surprise regarding the proximity of the president to him, and even the fact that it was Moncloa, the director of Cabinet Óscar López himself, who called him. Corvillo's tone in these messages exudes credibility for the Civil Guard.
It was at that meeting when the president allowed, deliberately or not, the plot to survive around the PSOE. According to Corvillo's account of the meeting with Aldama, Sánchez let him know that he "hasty" with "the issue of the boss", in reference to Ábalos, with whom he had been resuming the relationship and who, he tells his interlocutor, was already on the path to redemption. Precisely 12 days before, the former minister had sent Sánchez "some reflections" in a strategic sense.
Gone were the preliminary communications that Sánchez tried to reopen at the end of 2021. At that time, the Ábalos-Koldo and Aldama duo had distanced themselves. The cooling coincides in time with the intensification of the investigations that the Tax Agency was carrying out on Management Solutions, the Aldama company accused of paying bribes to the team of the former Minister of Transport.
Given the first information involving his former collaborator, Sánchez broke the ice for the first time with his former number two. "I am writing to you to convey my solidarity in the face of the lies that, unfortunately, we are seeing in the media," he wrote.
These brief exchanges continued to occur, progressively redirecting the relationship. "He misses me," Ábalos expressed other socialist leaders as the thaw progressed. And, indeed, in view of the 2023 general elections, Ábalos was reinstated to the Congressional lists with a starting position. By then there was already information published about his controversial activities with his right hand.
Seven days after 23-J, Sánchez replied to a WhatsApp: «I have missed working with you many times. I have always highly valued your political criteria. Also your friendship. The plot had free rein again. A year later, on February 21, 2024, the arrest of Koldo García was confirmed. In June the PSOE expelled Ábalos from the party.
