Ábalos’s network paid for Jésica’s apartment: up to 8,700 euros a month

Ábalos: 2,700 euros rent and up to 8,700 euros monthly for Jésica

The relationship between José Luis Ábalos and Jésica Rodríguez García was not a love story. According to the report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard sent to the judge, it was an intimate relationship with accounting. The former Minister of Transport had no partner nor, according to investigators, a mistress: he had a person who accompanied him to official events and for whom payments were made. The apartment where she resided between March 2019 and September 2021, in the Torre de Madrid building at Plaza de España, was paid for with 32 installments of 2,700 euros, 88,000 euros in total, and the money came from the network that the UCO places with Ábalos at the top, with Víctor de Aldama as leader and a straw man signing the receipts.

How much did it cost to accompany the third-in-command of the PSOE?

The first seven months of the relationship were billed at 1,500 euros per day. The young woman claimed 39,300 euros for accompanying the then Transport Minister and third-in-command of the PSOE on 33 official trips and party events, according to emails published by THE OBJECTIVE. The monthly breakdown reads like a service sheet: 4,500 euros in November 2018 —the first month with train tickets and hotel vouchers in her name for a alucinación to Girona and Barcelona—, 3,000 in December, 8,500 in January, 8,700 in February, 4,500 in March, 2,400 in April, 3,400 in May, 2,300 in June and 2,000 in July.

Here lies the first anomaly in the story: the amounts do not rise, they fall. And below all this emerges a third source of income that did not depend on any minister.

The apartment, the Ineco salary, and the Tragsatec contract

Alongside the travel payments is a salary from a state-owned company. Jésica was hired by the state engineering firm Ineco from March 1, 2019 —the same month she moved into the apartment on Plaza de España with expenses covered— until February 28, 2021, according to confirmation from the Government via the Transparency Portal. A pay slip recorded in the Civil Guard’s report attributes 1,635 euros monthly to her.

The UCO document also confirms the labor exemption that Joseba García, Koldo’s brother, signed as an security expert fifteen days after Jésica joined Ineco, allowing her to leave her post as administrative assistant and accompany Ábalos to Strasbourg and a party event in the Balearic Islands. On March 2, 2021, having exhausted the previous contract, she signed another at Tragsatec, a state-owned company dependent on SEPI and therefore the Ministry of Finance.

The 'exclusivity' pact and the rate cut that caused resentment

Emails from July 2019 reveal a relationship with written rules. Jésica reproached Ábalos for failing to keep his promise: she would earn 'the same or more' than the minister, and the relationship was sustained on an 'exclusivity' pact that implied, in her own words, an opportunity cost regarding other types of relationships. The initial messages were under the subject 'disgeusias', the word in dental jargon describing the sensation of discomfort.

The specific grievance was economic: 'If you see the amounts you gave me before compared to what you give me now, it makes me laugh…', she wrote. And she added: 'Last month you gave me 1,200 euros'. The settlement of services she provided herself included monthly amounts between 2,000 and 8,000 euros. The story she complains about is not one of an increase: it is one of a deflating rate.

The bill ultimately paid by the taxpayer

Cross-referencing the payment list with the ministerial agenda and the invoices seized in the Koldo case investigation, the result points to a total cost of between 6,000 and 12,000 euros per month for much of the period. The trips did not stop when the emails ended: there was a alucinación to Russia in August 2019 and another to Abu Dhabi in October, the latter documented in the exchange of messages between advisor Koldo García Izaguirre and the secretaries at the Ministry of Transport, who forwarded the airfare invoice.

Most invoices listed Koldo as the payment method and were processed through the 1412 cabinet account, from the Ministry of Transport’s cabinet, at the usual agency, Viajes El Corte Inglés. The relationship lasted at least one year longer than the emails suggest, until November 2020. The detailed calculation, month by month and invoice by invoice, is what turns a private affair into a line item of expenditure.

The political reaction and silence on the figures

The scandal has already produced textbook phrases. Yolanda Díaz, in a context where Ábalos’s possible indictment loomed over the published information, stated she could imagine how it feels 'thinking that while we were risking our lives in the pandemic, there were people stealing', and characterized the events as a 'scourge for democracies'. The phrase has its point: it coincides with the legislature of masks, perimeter closures, and mobility restrictions.

None of the figures collected here are fixed in a verdict. They come from a police report sent to a judge and journalistic publications that have been breaking down the amounts.

It is likely that the matter will ultimately be resolved on two separate fronts: the judicial, which will decide if there was a crime in the use of funds and public structures, and the political, which rarely resolves with numbers on the table. If the UCO’s criteria hold before the judge, the public bill for the episode will be measured in tens of thousands of euros, two contracts with state companies, and several trips charged to a ministerial cabinet account.