To find a member of the Pujol clan who escaped from the bench, or has problems with the treasury, you have to go back to Ramiro Pujol i Rosa, who was born at the end of the nineteenth century. We are on the 21st. Great-grandfather Ramiro had a factory … From corks in a town in Girona to supplying French winemakers. It was the work of the century, but the First World War came and he had to close down (there was no world for Champagne) and emigrate from his city with his wife and five children, one hand in front and the other behind, and with the contempt of those who had looked over their shoulders at their neighbors in fat cows and now, in skinny cows, bowed their heads farewell. Ramiro was the last Pujol to go bankrupt and fall on hard times. The next three generations lived as pashas, between politics and their business, and they all ended up being bench fodder. everyone.
The National Court’s photo of the “gang” sitting before the judges (Jordi Sr., Jordi Junior, Oliger, Josep, Oriol, Peri, Mireia and Marta) is the last page of the chronicle that has guided the future, the extravagance and the alleged dealings of what the “first family of Catalonia” has been like for the past 75 years, since the emergence of the grandfather Florencio Pujol y Brujat, son of Ramiro. Page 3898 of the Bank of England dated 3 March 1959, which gave a description of the first list of tax evaders prepared by the Franco regime. Florencio was committed to smuggling currency from Tangier (which was under Spanish administration at the time) in denominations of one hundred pesetas, according to the testimony of a representative of the Swiss Banking Association at the time. Decades later, and perhaps as a tribute to Ave Florenci, his grandson Jordi, the Pujol-Verrosola couple, followed the tradition established by his grandfather and devoted himself, according to the prosecutor and investigating judge, to sightseeing in all the known tax havens of the world, investing the family money. The honor is undoubtedly deserved by those like them. There is talk of hundreds of millions of anonymous euros ending up in banks in Andorra, Luxembourg, Panama, the Virgin Islands or Jersey. Another mountain of money in the Pyrenees. Following Spanish tradition, €500 in banknotes were transferred into rubbish bags, according to Jordi Junior’s ex-girlfriend.
The eight Pujols cling to the alibi of grandfather Florencio’s inheritance hidden in Switzerland, which the sister (Maria Pujol i Soleil) discovered on television when the “gentleman” confessed that he had money in the Alps: “But what inheritance or what inheritance?” Maria and her husband were almost shocked when they heard the remorseful confession from the patriarch of the clan that ruled Catalonia for more than two decades riddled with corruption scandals (Banca Catalana, Palau, 3 Percent, Pretoria, ITV, casinos… the list is endless). And all this unfolded under Bogolato’s protection, with the impunity afforded by the shadow of the all-powerful “president”, so that years later it seemed that “only Spain steals”.