"The president, Francisco González , told me that we had to contract with the person Julio Corrochano told me," former BBVA director and former president of the Northern Castellana District, Antonio Béjar , explained to the judge during the decree he made last July at the National Court in the framework of the Villarejo case and whose content has been accessed exclusively by EL MUNDO.

Béjar gave a statement during two days in the Central Court of Instruction number 6 directed by Manuel García Castellón . Before the magistrate and the two anti-corruption prosecutors, he directly involved the former president of the financial entity in the hiring of the companies controlled by the prison commissioner José Manuel Villarejo .

The former senior officer of the bank revealed a conversation he had with González in which he, always according to his testimony, gave him the order to contract with the companies indicated by Julio Corrochano, then head of Security at BBVA. The former police commissioner also chose Villarejo to provide services that reported, as the judge has already proven, income for his companies of 10.2 million euros.

Béjar explained that he only intervened and had knowledge of the hiring of the former commissioner's companies to carry out a patrimonial investigation of large bank delinquents such as the Martinsa, Colonial or Sacyr construction companies. On the contrary, the espionage was completely disconnected from what came to be called the "hostile group", the lobby led by Luis del Rivero that years before had tried to assault the bank with the purchase of an important package of shares of the entity.

REAL ESTATE ASSESSMENTS

The asset inquiry commission referred to by Béjar was initially entrusted to the intelligence company Kroll. Later the work went from the hands of this world-renowned society to be the responsibility of a company under the Cenyt Group , owned by Villarejo. According to Béjar, Francisco González was convinced that several of the entity's large debtors had hidden assets with which they could face their debts.

Béjar said that the compensation to the former commissioner - whom he did not know about anything, he stressed - was based on a fixed and a variable amount linked to asset recovery. And it is precisely at this last point that Bejar admits that he personally intervened. Not only in the direct contracting of Villarejo, which corresponded to its hierarchical superiors because the organization chart and the protocol of action of the entity imposed it, but in the supervision of the reports of valuation of the assets that it presented to the bank.

In several invoices submitted by the companies related to the commissioner to BBVA, there are hand-written notes of Béjar - who was head of Risks and the BBVA real estate group - approving them. That is, in fact, the central reason for the complaint of Béjar, as can be seen from the interrogation to which he was subjected. As he explained in his judicial statement, his mission was not to validate the invoices, but to determine whether the appraisal of the properties located by Villarejo was correct. And, consequently, if the variable proposed by the former commissioner should be paid. It was, in summary, real estate valuations and collate them with Cenyt.

WHAT THE COMMISSIONER SAID

In this section, Béjar contributed other relevant data to the researchers. According to its version, on one occasion there was a severe discrepancy between its valuation and that raised by the Villarejo group of companies. Before this situation, the bank's management indicated that "the conditions" imposed by the former commissioner had to be accepted. These figures were considered excessive by Béjar and, nevertheless, were authorized by the entity against his criteria, as he wanted to make clear in his appearance.

In addition to the search for hidden assets, investigators also want to clarify whether Francisco González himself used Villarejo's ability in real estate searches to make arrangements related to the purchase of real estate in El Escorial. The particular assignment to Villarejo would have been made through an interposed person.

Béjar - whose testimony has been considered key by the judge and Anticorruption to impute former president Francisco González and the financial institution itself - explained that he only met Villarejo personally much later. In early 2019, and without prior notice, the former head of Security Corrochano showed up at his office in the Castellana Norte District in the company of Villarejo with the intention of introducing him to a "friend" in case he needed any "service". Béjar, who by then knew the profile of the former police high command through the media, simply greeted him on a formal date that lasted for "just 5 minutes." So, Béjar continued, he intervened in his contracts on delinquents without having met him personally and never having met him.

INACEPTABLE CONTRACT

Bejar made another revelation of transcendence about the property investigation contracts. He explained to the judge and the prosecutors that at the first meeting to fix its content the then head of the legal services, Eduardo Arbizu , ostensibly showed his objections to some of the points that were included. Specifically, that the Cenyt Group came to propose the practice of "pressure maneuvers" on the most intimate family and personal circle of the bank's defaulters. The finally signed version was much smoother, without explicit reference to intimidation maneuvers around construction companies that carried debts with BBVA. In addition to Arbizu and Béjar, Villarejo's partner, the defendant Rafael Redondo, was present at that meeting.

The bank informed Béjar of his dismissal coinciding with his summons as the accused. In fact, the manager knew his dismissal and the opening of a disciplinary file while he was giving a statement. After answering a few questions from his defense, the Prosecutor requested for him a bail of half a million euros. That circumstance and the knowledge of the bank's movement against him led Béjar to review his initial intention to wait for the secrecy to be given a full statement. It was Friday and the manager informed the judge that he was willing to return to the hearing on Monday and answer all the questions. It happened like that. After his explanations, the Prosecutor's Office ruled out the need to demand bail.

PROVIDED DOCUMENTATION

The change in the position of Anticorruption was due to the collaboration provided by Béjar, who a few days later reported in great detail his experience in relation to the contracts investigated and provided abundant documentation that supported his testimony and questioned the bank's performance. The accused offered explanations about the alleged destruction of documentation attributed to him: it could not have been really destroyed because the bank had a copy and, in addition, the deletion of the copies that made him suspicious had been done in response to a new official protocol of performance.

Béjar has filed a lawsuit against the dismissal in which he emphasizes that he has been treated differently from other executives who also intervened in the contracts with the former commissioner and are charged. In the case of Béjar, his dismissal was accompanied by the loss of any benefit provided for in the agreed departures. Arbizu, for example, has also left BBVA, but has done so with the corresponding compensation and benefits.

Béjar's testimony, unpublished so far, contrasts with that of former President González, who marked distances with Villarejo and said he never personally intervened in his hiring. And with that of the entity, which reduces 15 years of work with the commissioner to the management of Corrochano and Béjar.

Judge García Castellón has already lifted the secret of the proceedings in a car in which he states that there are indications that the bank violated "fundamental rights" by hiring Villarejo to investigate certain people who were subjected to personal follow-up, espionage to your bank accounts and your telephone communications.

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