Quico Alsedo
Pablo Herraiz Madrid
Madrid
Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-00:40
In Barajas The civil guard of the 'Koldo case' was arrested when he left Spain
Koldo as Renfe advisor "He was only the brute next to Ábalos" and "a toxic masculinity"
"What about R 2, what happens every month," said
Víctor de Aldama on February 18, 2022,
one of the organizers of the allegedly corrupt plot around Minister
José Luis Ábalos,
to one of his subordinates.
And five days later, De Aldama and
Rubén Villalba,
a civil guard friend of
Koldo García,
met, as established by the
Civil Guard
by scrutinizing their chats, "coinciding with the date on which Aldama had those 2,000 euros prepared for R."
It was clear: "R" could only be agent Villalba, a native of Barakaldo like Koldo - although much younger -.
And "2" had to be what he charged: 2,000 euros.
But not only.
On March 10, 2022,
César Moreno,
another of the detainees, told the others on WhatsApp, recalling the payments made, that he had already paid "two thousand and some R."
In another message, De Aldama noted as “expenses”, in communication with another member of the plot, “1000 R”.
The investigators no longer had any doubt: Rubén Villalba was on the payroll.
In addition, he carried out transactions "in B" - black money - consisting of taking money from Aldama to Koldo, according to investigators.
So when his colleagues from the
Central Operational Unit
of the Civil Guard noticed that he was taking a plane from
Malaga
to
Madrid
last Sunday, March 3, and was preparing to take another flight from the
Adolfo Suárez Airport to Venezuela,
at whose embassy he was assigned As an Interior attaché, the agents decided to arrest him.
Judge
Ismael Moreno,
who directs the investigations from the
National Court,
had issued just two days before, on Friday, March 1, a judicial order to enter and search his home in the town of
Benamejí,
in the province of
Córdoba.
But the investigators could not allow Villalba, clearly linked to the plot, to leave
Spain
with several phones, two mobile phones, two computers, a pendrive (in which the Civil Guard found a folder called "Venezuela") and a curious amount of money. in cash: $4,835 divided into 43 10s, 631 fives, 200 twos and 850 one-dollar bills.
The agents who arrested him in Madrid seized all of this, and in the report to the judge, to which EL MUNDO has had access, they attribute several acts attributable to Commander Rubén Villalba in his relationship with the network that, presumably, was distributed - and For this reason, they are accused of bribery, influence peddling, money laundering and criminal organization - millions in commissions after obtaining eight public contracts to sell masks to the State for 55 million euros during the hardest part of the pandemic.
The agents thus maintain that Villalba "received recurring cash payments from Aldama" - supported by messages such as "don't forget to take out the 3.6 that I need for
Piedad
[Aldama's secretary] and R."
The agents also say that the Civil Guard would have "carried out actions for the benefit of Aldama in the exercise or under the protection of his status" as an agent of the authority.
"In particular, it would have provided a secure line of communication to Aldama."
The researchers also trace "a direct, personal and permanent link over time with Aldama and Koldo."
Even classic criminal groups: "He knows you are ours," Koldo tells Villalba in a message captured by the agents.
"We cannot have these failures with our people," Aldama tells the others when Villalba goes to undergo a PCR in a business that they control, and charge him, in an intercepted chat under the name "
Four Musketeers."
In the background, more.
Koldo said in another puncture that he had opened "a couple of doors" for Villalba; the agent had just been named Interior Liaison in Venezuela - a highly coveted position.
And as he already published this newspaper, he himself was present in Barajas in January 2020 when the Venezuelan vice president
Delcy Rodríguez
landed in
Barajas,
irregularly, with dozens of suitcases, in an episode that has never been clarified.
With him, Aldama, Koldo and Ábalos himself.