Reports, fake accounts, and other attacks against the independence process
Since 2012, Spain has sought out scandals involving Catalan pro-independence leaders
BarcelonaSince 2012 the so-called Operation Catalonia has showed its hand via accusations of corruption against pro-independence leaders. Now, however, feuds within the Spanish police force have revealed the strategy —during a statement in court police Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo admitted to the existence of this operation— and leaked tapes from the Interior Minister's office brought it to light: the conversations between Jorge Fernández Díaz and Daniel de Alfonso, former head of the Anti-Fraud Office, have cast light on the conspiracy against Catalan leaders. Until now, the most well-known cases have been the appearance of a report about former President Artur Mas in the middle of the election campaign in 2012, the false Swiss bank accounts of former Barcelona Mayor Xavier Trias, and the alleged pressure on the BPA (Private Bank of Andorra) to obtain information on ex-presidents Pujol and Mas and current Vice-President Oriol Junqueras.
The report on Mas
An apocryphal document from the UDEF accused him of keeping cash abroad
It was the election campaign of November 25, 2012 and then-president Artur Mas had called elections after failing in his bid for a fiscal agreement with Madrid, thus submitting the option of a referendum to the voters. Nine days before the polls, Spanish daily El Mundo ran a front-page story about the alleged link between "CiU corruption" and personal Swiss bank accounts belonging to Mas and Pujol. The information was based on an unsigned report from the UDEF, the financial crimes unit of the Spanish police. Eventually the UDEF denied any connection with the report. The authorship of the document has yet to be established.
The Pujol family case
An Andorran bank claims pressure by Spanish police
The latest scandal cropped up at the end of the summer when the largest shareholder of the Private Bank of Andorra (BPA), Higini Cierco, stated in court that he had been pressured by Celestino Barroso, Interior Department attaché to the Spanish Embassy in Andorra, and Marcelino Martín Blas, the former chief of the Internal Affairs Division, to reveal information about Pujol, Mas, and Junqueras with a view to thwarting the Catalan independence process. As a result of this, Cierco admitted that a BPA director had leaked information to the Spanish police about the Pujol family’s assets. The Andorran justice system has opened an investigation into the alleged pressure on the bank's managers.
"Fernándezgate"
The Minister and the former head of Anti-Fraud conspired against the independence movement
Still, the case that has done the most to highlight the role of Fernández Díaz was the publication by online outlet Público of several taped conversations with Daniel de Alfonso, ex-head of the Anti-Fraud Office in Catalonia, in which they conspired to dig up dirt on the independence movement. Among other things, they were seeking any incriminatory detail against Roger Junqueras, Oriol Junqueras' brother, in connection with the awarding of contracts to CESPA by the tri-partite government, and also against Felip Puig, Francesc Homs, and Xavier Trias.
Trias' bank account
El Mundo printed a fabricated story
Three days before 9-N, Madrid’s El Mundo published a report on the existence of a Swiss bank account with over 12 million euros belonging to Xavier Trias, Barcelona's then-mayor. The CDC leader strongly denied the report and proved that the information was false by means of a letter from the Union of Swiss Banks (UBS) stating that their records did not contain "any account in his name". Trias filed a lawsuit against El Mundo, and later expanded it to include the Spanish Interior Minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz.
