Aldama hands UCO notes on 19.5m in bribes

Aldama delivers bribe distribution notes to the UCO

What is an Excel spreadsheet worth? In the case gripping half of La Moncloa, the provisional answer is €19.5 million. According to the annotations businessman Víctor de Aldama handed to the Guardia Civil, that was the amount in the pot earmarked for illegal commissions. The document, first reported by El Debate, lists the distribution and places former minister José Luis Ábalos at the top, attributing "two million" to him. Ábalos maintains he never received money from the broker.

The list is not a loose sheet. It is a payment table with nicknames, amounts, and destination notes, where Aldama refers to Ábalos as "The Great" and his former advisor Koldo García as "Goblins." He annotates €500,000 for Koldo next to the word "house," an amount UCO agents suspect paid for the chalet in Sotogrande (Cádiz) that the network rented for the ex-minister's use. In court, the businessman added that he also gave Ábalos €250,000 at his Ministry of Transport office and €100,000 in cash to Koldo.

Figures in Aldama's annotations

The breakdown includes names investigators are still trying to decipher. Next to the aliases "Bolarque," "J. Core," "Israel," "Cristian," and "Bernardo" appear €3 million, €1 million, €200,000, €100,000, and €200,000 respectively. Added to this payment structure is the rental of a private aircraft for €5.5 million, a cost the businessman allegedly covered within the same scheme.

The defense of the document lies not in its appearance but in its verification. Some argue the annotations are validated by cross-referencing each name with the recipients' bank income. Without that match, a private ledger has little value; with it, it becomes a roadmap. That is the crux: the UCO already states that Aldama's testimony aligns with evidence they possessed.

Moncloa portfolio and "special authorization" visit

Aldama did not just hand over numbers. He also deposited a portfolio which, according to published reports, exists only in the Palace of La Moncloa and which he used to prove his closeness to the Prime Minister's circle. Inside was an authorization signed by Ábalos naming the businessman as Spain's liaison to Venezuela, backing him to act on behalf of the State against opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

To this is added a visit to the presidential grounds in early 2021, including a meeting with Begoña Gómez regarding the €475 million rescue of Air Europa. The vehicle entered under "special visit" status, a variant that avoids recording license plates and occupant identities: guard posts only logged the brand, model, and time.

Why isn't a private Excel enough as proof?

An unsigned accounting document condemns no one. It is the first rule of any investigation. Handwritten notes or private spreadsheets gain value when forensic analysis proves authorship and dates, and when content is cross-checked with bank movements, recordings, or witnesses. A file's creation date can be manipulated relatively easily, and metadata is not an unforgeable seal.

What does weigh heavily is the rest of the material. Phones tapped since 2019, five mobile phones and a computer seized during the February search, 23 terminals confiscated at Koldo's home, two USB drives claimed by the ex-minister, and a domestic recorder draw a evidentiary perimeter much wider than a spreadsheet. The question is not if the Excel suffices, but what it adds to what already existed.

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The sequence has its internal logic: show the table, let them bark, and when the noise subsides, the recording appears. Those expecting a quick resolution have the wrong genre. This unfolds in installments, and the first installment is a sheet with nicknames and a round figure. Fine irony: after years of scandals, we are still debating whether a private document counts, while the phones keep holding what really matters.