Los Pujol: seven years probation plagued by incumbents and unjustified money

• 'Case of Pujol'. Anticorruption uncovers a new fortune of the Pujol family in Andorra
• Corruption.The Pujol operated in Andorra under the alias of 'Sagrada Familia'

Like so many times in the cinema, a sentimental break was the ruin of the bad guy. And in this case the alleged bad guys are a family clan, that of the honorable molt Jordi Pujol i Soley, patriarch of Catalan nationalism, along with his wife Marta and their seven children. The former president's untouchable aura collapsed in 2012 when it came to light that concealed a fortune of unknown origin in tax havens.

Seven years have passed splashed with scandals and the Pujol have not yet been prosecuted. Already in 2012, the Treasury revealed that Pujol Sr. put 1.8 million in cash in the Reig Bank. His son Oriol has spent two months in jail for the ITV case ; His brother Jordi spent six days, between which the judge sent him to prison and collected 500,000 euros to pay bail. So far they have smiled on probation. The ex-girlfriend, we said, of the firstborn Jordi Pujol Ferrusola uncovered that in that family something strange happened with the money.

It was the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo who convinced her at the end of 2012 to confess the clan's weavings. Victoria Álvarez provided information about a fortune in Switzerland that at first brought the unconditional pujolescos to war, but eventually prospered in a police and judicial investigation that will end this September.

A hidden money in Andorra, no more or less than five million, was the beginning of the end for the clan. And idem for Villarejo, now imprisoned, whose apocryphal reports and unofficial investigations have already begun to sound for the general public.

Battle to justify the money

After much deny and indignation, we will travel to 2014, when the patriarch ended up confessing in a letter that the money was the inheritance of his father, the banker Florenci , and that he had to declare it to the Treasury but, things of life, he did not he did because "the time to regularize was never found."

Thus began his battle to justify unjustified money. That it came from something lawful as an inheritance, and not from an underlying crime that would lead to another without laundering. The words of also former president Pasqual Maragall in 2005 resonated as psychophonies: "His problem is 3%," the CiU bites in exchange for awards. The accusation and fortune of Pujol led to the case 3% and forced CiU to disintegrate and reinvent itself.

Meanwhile, the Police and Anti-Corruption provided data to the National Court and it was found that the booty of Pujol senior was mainly that of Pujol junior. At the same time that the image of the whole family collapsed, multiple businesses of the firstborn were uncovered with frontmen and screen companies.

The son's business

For example, its operations in Puerto Madero, a place that supposed a urban transformation for Buenos Aires comparable to that of the Olympic Games of 92 for the Port of Barcelona . Or its resort and luxury villas in Acapulco ( Mexico ), or investments in Houston , Miami and Delaware ( USA ), until reaching much more tropical projects.

These businesses met thanks to a pendrive, then invalidated as evidence by a police fudge after which it is believed that Villarejo also walked. Judge De la Mata did not consider the route or obtaining such data lawful. In addition, the original pendrive was lost one year in a Canillas drawer, which ended up being excluded from the summary.

But there was exoticism inside: Africa , Caribbean , Central America ... This newspaper published in January 2017 how the offspring wanted to get the exclusive to sell medicines to all of Gabon ! in exchange for commissions; or how he mediated right there to get contracts with Isolux .

Vip characters from yesterday's and today's politics were featured. Business and ideas such as a hospital and a detergent plant in Mauritania ; solar gardens in Senegal ; a laboratory in Paraguay ; initiatives in Ghana , Jamaica , Morocco , Dominican Republic , Panama and Turkey . Even in 2015, already in full investigation, Pujol jr. I was designing a duty free network for the United Arab Emirates . Around the world in a USB.

The court case has also traveled the globe several times with rogatory commissions and money finds. At some point it was estimated at 69 million what earned by Pujol Jr. with his business; in others, in 137. In 2018, the Udef accused the clan of having laundered 28.5 million while roaming free in full investigation. And as it was published yesterday, Anticorrupción has returned to catch accounts movements in Andorra.

The family was accused of laundering with tenths of Lottery; connections were made with Arturo Fasana, the great figurehead of the Sunny account in which famous rich and evaders hid the peculiar; they hunted Josep , another son, with a van loaded with cash on the dizzy border between Chile and Argentina, where the puna devours you.

Josep himself who wrote a few months ago to Villarejo to ask for help in the trance. They knew each other, they say, because the commissioner pressured him in 2014 so that the clan would stop independence in exchange for closing the case soon.

Marta, the matriarch, wrote to an employee of Private Banking in Andorra , where the inheritance: "Send me three missals. Signed: the mother superior," and half jokingly, half in code, asked for three million. In 2015, Marta - the daughter, not the mother - was investigated for obtaining a place without a contest in a Catalan town hall. Mireia , her sister, heard this ironic response from Judge De la Mata, bored of knowing so many things and hearing the fable of how the young woman the bank quintupled her fortune only with her "efficient management": "Well listen ... Congratulations to your manager. "

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Banking
• Andorra
• Morocco
• Mexico
• Turkey
• UDEF
• Africa
• Argentina
• National audience
• Chile
• ITV
• Jordi Pujol Ferrusola
• José Manuel Villarejo
• LOC

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