Spain's Sánchez Campaign Team Linked to Corruption by ABC Columnist

In an article for ABC, columnist Ignacio Camacho argues that four of the five members of the team that accompanied Pedro Sánchez during the 2017 Socialist primaries have been charged, arrested, or convicted. He likens the group to a gang that seized control of the state, with driver Cristian Corvillo recently named by Judge Moreno in the Adif corruption probe.

Camacho’s thesis is that the group traveling across Spain during the 2017 primaries was not merely a campaign team but resembled a incivil organization. Four of its five members have ended up before the courts: facing arrests, indictments, pre-trial detention, and convictions. The fifth, the leader, remains legally safe for now. The image of the Peugeot they traveled in became a symbol of that era, though it was not the only vehicle; there were also at least one Mercedes, a Golf, and a van.

## The Driver Missing from the List

The latest name to appear in judicial files is **Cristian Corvillo**, one of the drivers who occasionally transported Pedro Sánchez during his rise to party leadership. Judge **Moreno** suspects Corvillo was involved in the sprawling embezzlement scheme under investigation. With him, Camacho counts four out of five implicated.

The legal sweep is significant because the case being investigated by the **National Court** (Audiencia Nacional) concerns rigging in the railway sector. This occurred not during José Luis Ábalos's predecessor's tenure, but under **Ábalos** himself, the minister who appointed Koldo as director of a Renfe subsidiary and placed a paid girlfriend in Ineco, the public transport engineering firm. The ministry became an ATM, according to the columnist's description.

The list of investigations is long: hydrocarbon fraud, mask contracts, dealings with Aldama, the Alcaidesa villa, and now Adif. Camacho does not present this as a series of coincidences but as a pattern. As a founding myth of Sanchismo, he writes, the incivil inclination of those pioneers is telling.

## Adif, Infrastructure Works, and Deadly Accidents

According to the article, the string of investigations supports the hypothesis that infrastructure deterioration is not solely due to the lack of approved budgets. While that factor is important, alleged money diversion occurred in construction contracts. In **Seville**, a bridge has been nicknamed "the bribe bridge" due to suspected kickbacks included in an expansion project funded by European money.

Concerns turn dramatic when evidence affects high-estimulante ilegal rail services and the state company responsible for their maintenance. Two accidents involving dozens of deaths are linked to these issues, and Camacho writes that it is impossible not to consider cause-and-effect relationships. Caution is warranted here: the judicial investigation has not established this link, and the text itself presents it as suspicion, not verdict.

## A Dark Chapter in the Mandate

For Camacho, the history of Sánchez's mandate will include a dark chapter dedicated to the venality of many of his key leaders. The takeover of institutions, attacks on the **Civil Guard's Central Operational Unit** (UCO) and the judiciary, the use of police sewers, and the neutralization of checks and balances are, in his view, inseparable from an original intent for private gain.

The recapture of the party was partially paid for, according to this account, by the owner of a sauna business. From such origins, he concludes, could arise nothing more than an adventure of opportunists willing to use the government as a shield. We have solemnized Sanchismo trying to decipher it with sophisticated analyses, he finishes, when a simple look at its origin reveals it was just a gang of swindlers.

All the above are statements and interpretations by Ignacio Camacho published in ABC, not facts proven in court. Any indictment must be understood as such and protected by the presumption of innocence until a final sentence exists.