The dramatic affair of the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) - involving, first, on March 10th, 2015, the intervention in this bank by the authorities of the Pyrenean mountain principality of Andorra, who had accepted the US Treasury's alert that it had evidence of its involvement in money laundering; and then, the bank's subsequent liquidation - is an exceptional episode with dark chapters waiting to be clarified. As part of the Operation Catalonia Papers, ElNacional.cat has obtained new documents that certify that the owners of the BPA, the brothers Higini and Ramon Cierco, as well as its former CEO, Joan Pau Miquel, received pressure from the so-called 'patriotic police', directed by the Spanish interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, to illegally provide them with banking details of the Pujol Ferrusola family and of alleged accounts held by Catalan pro-independence politicians Artur Mas and Oriol Junqueras.
🔒 Secret documents incriminate Rajoy's Spanish government in the anti-independence Operation Catalonia
This pressure was applied for at least a year before the BPA was subjected to intervention, and its subsidiary in Spain, Banco Madrid, bought from Basque bank Kutxa in 2010, was dissolved. In the end, the 'patriotic police' group working on its Operation Catalonia objectives obtained a screenshot of the accounts held by family members of former Catalan president Jordi Pujol in the summer of 2014, an account in which they had regularized 3.1 million euros. But now, it can also been revealed that the delicate situation of the bank was exploited by Spanish anti-corruption prosecutors to obtain data on the clients of the Spanish bank until April 2014, since it was held on computers in Andorra.
Without a court
In addition, and coming up to date: there is, in 2024, no Spanish judge who wants to have anything to do with the complaint filed by the former CEO of the BPA against retired police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, former interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, and former officials on his team. It has become a zombie complaint: it has neither been accepted nor shelved by any court for more than a year. Judge Manuel García-Castellón has several times refused to investigate the complaint which alleges extortion, coercion and blackmail by officers of the Operation Catalonia brigade, despite the fact that he has sent Fernández Díaz and officials of his team to trial for having employed the Spanish police in their battle to prevent the ex-treasurer of the PP, Luis Bárcenas, from disseminating compromising material on the party: the so-called Kitchen case.
Only one court in Andorra is investigating ex-PM Mariano Rajoy and his former ministers over this Andorran section of Operation Catalonia. However, his interrogation, sought by Andorra, has been blocked in Spanish courts for months. Police commissioner Villarejo talks about this complaint with Martínez in a conversation recorded on August 22nd, 2014. "They are leading her up the garden path [referring to Vicky Álvarez]. The complaint is focused on the 'draft' [a false police report by the economic crimes unit] and her conversations with Alicia [Sánchez-Camacho]", declares Villarejo, even maintaining that "they have spoken with prosecutor Grinda and judge Pijuan, who is in charge of the 'draft' case" - judge Pijuan, who now works in Andorran justice, was also the judge in the Palau corruption case, where he smelt a rat and did not accept a false report from the patriotic police.
Coercion, documented
The political police brigade created by Mariano Rajoy's Spanish government sent officers to neighbouring Andorra, starting from at least 2012, to investigate whether the family of ex-president Jordi Pujol had accounts in Andorra. This is stated in memoranda that were sent to high-ranking officials in the ministry of the interior, as well as in conversations recorded by retired commissioner Villarejo with the-then undersecretary for security, Francisco Martínez, between 2013 and 2014. First, they were following up tip-offs given to them by the Catalan businessman Javier de la Rosa, whom he calls a "mercenary", and also by the ex-partner of the oldest Pujol son, Vicky Álvarez, "a gold-digger", according to Villarejo.
Specifically, in a memo dated December 29th, 2012, the police maintained that they had already made arrangements with Andorran banks, and that all the information cannot be handed over until they give the order because of the supposed existence in those banks of accounts belonging to the husband of María Dolores de Cospedal ("MDC"), secretary general of the People's Party (PP), and Spanish king Juan Carlos I, through his friend Josep Cusí - this latter fact revealed by digital newspaper El Confidencial almost ten years later, long after Juan Carlos's abdication on June 19th, 2014.
🔒 Operation Catalonia investigated the Sagrada Família and stumbled on a royal infidelity
The memo states: "Income not declared to the Treasury, the investigation on the Pujol clan has also been halted until the order is given, ordered by the High Authority, as both ILH (MDC's husband) and his nephew appear as receivers of these funds. It is because of this that they insist on the need to correct these errors. It would be totally ineffective to hide such important information, as well as that referred to which the collaborators in the Andorran bank have been facilitating under misunderstood criteria of protection, [and thus] hiding the links of high State institutions with the same bank used by the Pujol clan and/or the private businesses of a spouse will seriously hinder the AEC [Activities in Catalonia] project."
Memo of July 1st 2014, showing screenshot of BPA account movements by four of the Pujol family in 2010-11: which, says the memo, "came from all types of presumably criminal actions... money obtained thanks to taking advantage of the privileged status in Catalonia." Later it adds: "Part of this information, although in a way that was forced and obliged by the circumstances, was provided by the BPA officials themselves who, fearful of the possibility of losing the licence to operate in Spain as a private bank through the Banco Madrid brand, chose to agree to cooperate with the Spanish judicial and fiscal authorities."
Anti-corruption prosecutors and the Spanish embassy in Andorra
Parallel to the patriotic police's dirty war, the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor did not miss the opportunity to take action, just a week after the intervention in the BPA and when it was being managed by judicial receivers; not by its owners. On March 16th, 2015, the prosecutors José Grinda and Juan José Rosa agreed to extend the investigation proceedings 7/2015 and requested information on the clients of Banco Madrid to clarify information on alleged money laundering of the institution, according to a report by Sepblac (Spanish economy ministry financial intelligence unit). Permission was requested from the Bank of Spain, as Banco Madrid was also under intervention due to the action against the BPA. It was discovered that the oldest bank data, up to April 2014, was held by the Andorran bank. And thus, Spanish police asked the BPA administrators, to authorize that this be handed over, even though the bank's legal advisers were doubtful about the propriety. But it went ahead, and the Spanish police asked for the data to be handed over to the Spanish Embassy in Andorra, where Celestino Barroso, police inspector and attaché of the interior ministry, was later accused by the BPA managers of having used extortion against them to obtain details of the Pujols' accounts (which were published by El Mundo and confessed days later by the former president, in July 2014).
Finally, the delivery of the bank data took place on March 24th, 2015, an action that began in the morning, about four hours before the judge and the Andorran prosecutor gave their approval to the compliance with this international rogatory letters demand to provide banking data to the Spanish authorities. Due to these events, the owners of the defunct BPA filed a complaint for abuse of authority against the Andorran judge, the status of which is unknown. A day earlier, the anti-corruption prosecutors had linked the alleged investigations opened at Banco Madrid with the investigation that had been underway since 2011 led by National Audience judge Fernando Andreu, on the Emperador Case, a money laundering case related to Chinese businessman Gao Ping.