Villarejo case grows: saunas, Moroccan spies and political kompromat

The Villarejo case widens: saunas, Segarro spies and an alleged lobby inside the PSOE

The Villarejo case is more than a judicial scandal: it is an X-ray of how power is built through blackmail. The latest reports circulating point to a scheme that combines saunas, foreign intelligence services and an alleged pressure lobby within Spain's Socialist Party (PSOE). Villarejo, at the center of numerous court cases, would have known first-hand about the collection of compromising material on Spanish politicians by foreign agents, with the tolerance of the Spanish intelligence services.

The conversation that has circulated suggests that Villarejo himself would have taken the matter with irony, as if national security were a joke. The comments about the Pegasus system – the spying software that has implicated the Government – suggest it could be a smokescreen to divert attention from these episodes. The debate reminds us that the practice of kompromat is not exclusive to Russian services: all agencies use it, though the difference lies in who tolerates it.

The problem, analysts point out, is not that political espionage exists, but that it is exercised with the complicity of the state apparatus. If it is confirmed that foreign agents gathered sensitive information on national politicians right under the nose of the CNI (Spain's intelligence service, also known as CENEI), we would be talking about something more than negligence. In any case, the alleged lgtb lobby within the PSOE, presented as an internal pressure network, adds an identity component that raises the political tension.

The reports are unverified. Pending a court ruling, they should be treated as hypotheses. But the inability of the institutions to firmly deny these facts feeds every theory. If the Villarejo case proves anything, it is that the border between politics, money and espionage is more permeable than the official narrative wants to admit. And the next revelation may shift the board again.