PSOE admits ‘gross’ travel and meal expenses during Ábalos stage, but rules out illegal financing

A forensic expertise commissioned by the PSOE from two professors excludes the existence of illegal financing in the training because there is no indication of undeclared or unexplored funds, while it revealed some “eye-catching” expenses that the Organizing Secretariat of José Luis Ábalos invoiced to the party.

These charges include a meal for nine guests on Christmas Day 2019 in Valencia or “extraordinary” expenses in a seafood restaurant, La Chalana, excessive expenses which represent between 4 and 25%, depending on the year, of the 126,858 euros transited through the department of Ábalos.

This is what the report that the PSOE announced last July indicates, rejecting any irregularity in its accounts, in response to the judicial investigation against its last two organizational secretaries, José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán.

This analysis, to which EFE had access, studies cash payments made by the PSOE between 2017 and 2024, as well as the party’s liquidity.

It was prepared by the professor of financial and tax law Félix Alberto Vega Borruego – one of the names proposed by Podemos for the General Council of the Judiciary in 2018 – and the professor of financial and tax law César Martínez Sánchez, both from the Autonomous University of Madrid.

They relied on PSOE cash notes, expense regulations and receipts from the Secretariat of the Organization, data that this party also transmitted to the National Court, where judge Ismael Moreno analyzes in a secret document the cash payments made by the PSOE, against a backdrop of suspicions that Ábalos or his former advisor Koldo García used the PSOE to launder money of illicit origin.

Between 2017 and 2024, the PSOE allocated 940,388 euros to the party fund, of which 126,858 went to the Secretariat of the Organization until 2020; while 19,637.97 euros were allocated to Ábalos, only until 2019; As is the case of Koldo García, who between 2017 and 2019 received 11,291.33 euros.

Cerdán received 7,433 euros in cash between 2023 and 2024 and during his mandate the Secretariat only adopted three regulations for values ​​of 237.83; 374.2; and 186.55 euros.

“A consistent, closed and verifiable cash register system”

The report considers that the PSOE treasury system during the period analyzed is “consistent, closed and verifiable” because “all cash inflows have a bank origin or respond to advance payment adjustments and all outflows are properly documented.”

The funds come almost entirely from the bank account that the party has at BBVA and, apart from that, the PSOE has earned during these years 7,283 euros thanks to “sporadic and perfectly identified” operations such as the sale of “merchandising”, scrap metal or the winning of 1,000 euros in a lottery prize, an “atypical income” which represents 1% of the money.

In all cash outflows, the recipient and the corresponding organic zone are identified. And all payments “present the typical structure of a reimbursement of expenses, with proof and link with the ordinary activities of the party”.

Furthermore, “there is no movement of liquidity outside the ordinary treasury circuit”.

“Striking” recipes up to 332 euros for a menu

On the other hand, this report found “eye-catching” expense receipts transmitted by the Secretariat of the Organization during the period Ábalos was in charge.

They analyzed in detail the settlements which exceed 2,000 euros and which include several receipts. Although many of the tickets kept by the PSOE are already difficult to see, it must be emphasized that the majority of expenses, with the exception of a few refuelings and a few tickets, were made in restaurants on the “Madrid-Valencia axis” and generally did not exceed 60 euros of expenses per guest.

But there are exceptions, such as three invoices on the same day for which “the explanation is not obvious”, two others at La Chalana at 11:58 p.m. one day in January 2020, a menu for 332 euros in this same restaurant, the equivalent of one hundred euros per person after eating crab and oysters. Spending exceeding the threshold of 60 euros per guest was 4% in 2018, but in 2020 it reached 25%.

The professors also drew their attention to a restaurant in La Massana (Andorra), one from Brussels and another from Bruges, both in Belgium, considering them “catchy” places.

“In general, the precise manner” in which the payment was made is not indicated, nor the recipient on the receipts, with a few exceptions where Ábalos, his advisor Koldo García or the person who was his driver appear, while on one occasion the receipt is in the name of Ábalos’ ex-mother-in-law.

The settlement sheets, which the PSOE keeps, were formerly in the name of Ábalos and had his approval and that of the head of administration, while in 2017 there were receipts signed by Francisco Salazar, then deputy secretary.

PSOE excludes illegal financing, but will check if it is a scam

After receiving this report last week, the PSOE rules out any illegal financing, but still has to analyze expense reports and compare revenue and transportation with the agenda of the Secretariat of the Organization.

It is now time to analyze whether the people surveyed took advantage of the PSOE by spending on expenses that do not correspond to their political activity and thus see if there is a type of scam of which they could have been victims, indicate socialist sources.