The former Secretary of State for the Interior Francisco Martínez, who was number 2 in the Ministry headed by Jorge Fernández Díaz, has sent a letter of seven pages to the head of Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot, in which he attributes to the Principality the responsibility of the liquidation of Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA), in 2015. Martínez maintains that it was Andorra, and not Spain, who provided the information to FinCen – a United States organization against the financing of terrorism – so that it could act against the bank.
Martínez also warns that when it is his turn to appear in the judicial process opened in Andorra against the leadership of the government of Mariano Rajoy, he will reveal all the information that proves it. The letter, to which La Vanguardia has had access, is dated November 17 and has just been incorporated into the judicial summary; Martínez sent another letter to the judge in the case, Stephanie Garcia, showing her interest in testifying.
Martínez denies in the letter addressed to Espot that the financial action against BPA has any relationship with the so-called Operation Catalonia, whose existence he denies. It is a "mythical story" fueled by the independence movement.
Espot was at that time Minister of the Interior, as Martínez reminds him several times, and he is running for re-election in the elections of the next April 2 at the head of the center-right list of Democrats for Andorra.
In his argument, the one who was second in the Ministry of the Interior admits that in the run-up to the closure of BPA (and its Spanish subsidiary, Banco de Madrid) there was "convergence of interests" between Spain and Andorra. The governments of both countries, and especially their Interior services, maintained an intense collaboration, the letter repeatedly points out, which for Martínez disables the argument that the closure of the entity was due to revenge by the Spanish police for the null collaboration of BPA in the leak of alleged bank accounts that three pro-independence politicians may have in said entity. "In the events that occurred in March 2015, there is no criminal plot, but the convergence of interests of both states and a succession of actions in record time that, with the perspective given by the judicial investigations substantiated and archived in Spain, we can qualify as , being indulgent, erroneous, but never criminal ”, he argues.
“The origin of the intelligence that underlies the FinCen note is not its own sources nor Spanish sources, but information provided directly from the principality of Andorra. If, after judicial investigations, it is considered that the information was incorrect or was deliberately exaggerated or even manipulated, the explanation is not in Spain, but in Andorra”, he adds.
The letter does not make any reference to the pressure maneuvers by the Spanish police denounced by BPA. In June 2014, the entity's CEO, Joan Pau Miquel, was summoned to an interview with the Interior Attaché at the Spanish embassy in Andorra, Celestino Barroso, in which he urged him to give him information about accounts that Oriol Junqueras, Artur Mas and Jordi Pujol could have on that bench. If BPA did not help, Barroso announced that the bank would receive a "hack blow"; That happened nine months later, with the intervention of FinCen, which accused the bank of money laundering and forbade it from then on to operate in dollars: the closure.
At the same appointment, Barroso invited Miquel to a meeting at a Madrid hotel, where he would be interviewed by a certain Félix Rodríguez, false name of Marcelino Martín-Blas, then head of the Internal Affairs Unit, who he hoped to obtain at that time. the requested documentation.
BPA maintains that it never gave information to the police. Shortly after, at the beginning of July 2014, El Mundo published an alleged bank screenshot with account details of the Pujols in the Pyrenean country. On the 25th of the same month, Jordi Pujol confessed that for decades he had money in Andorra, coming from his paternal inheritance.
In the letter, Martínez stresses that in 2010 the Unitat d'Intel·ligència Financiala d'Andorra began to investigate some suspicious accounts in BPA. Specifically, from Russian, Venezuelan, and Chinese mafias and also from the Sinaloa cartel. These are the cases that supported FinCen's 2015 action against BPA. There was never any judicial or police process against the Sinaloa cartel. The first three remained in minor plots, and in some cases the funds deposited in BPA came precisely from other banks in the country. Martínez affirms that more than a war against the independence movement, there was a "bad coexistence between banking entities" in Andorra and a desire of its authorities to "show an exemplary reaction to foreign financial interlocutors", that is, the United States.
"I understand, Mr. Cap de Govern -Martínez continues in his letter- that the response that immediately produces reflections could be to invoke judicial independence and the strict separation between the powers of the government and the investigations carried out by the courts of justice (...) However, you will agree with me that the scope of a judicial investigation that certain media outlets insistently present as the criminal accusation in Andorra of a former president of the government, two former ministers and various public officials, including myself, transcends the judicial and delves into the field of Bilateral relations in a way, to date, unprecedented”. Martínez also charges against his former party, the PP, which he accuses of "always acting guided by the personal interest of its leaders and with an unforgivable contempt for its collaborators." Among them, Francisco Martínez, remarks.
The original complaint against the leadership of the Interior and Treasury of the Rajoy government, with the president and two of his ministers among them, was presented by the Institut de Drets Humans d'Andorra and admitted by the justice system of that country in 2020; before the summer of 2022, an extension of it began to be processed. Several of the defendants –including Rajoy- appealed to the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) against the processing by the Ministry of Justice of the international letters rogatory requested by Andorra. The last decision of the TSJM, in mid-December, was to paralyze said procedures.
Martínez concludes the letter by apologizing for "stealing" time from Espot and alleging that if he has dared to do so, it is because "we have both had responsibilities (in his case higher) in terms of public safety and I believe that this experience generates an evident propensity for understanding ”.
