After being arrested on October 28, 2020, spending two nights in jail and having his phone tapped for a year and a half, the Volhov case against David Madí has come to nothing. The investigating judge 1 of Barcelona, Joaquín Aguirre, has decided to close the investigation for influence peddling that he was following against the former convergent leader, finding no evidence of a crime. The case started with the purpose of discovering the alleged Russian connections of the process and ended up deriving in the case of Madí in an investigation into his contacts with the administration for his private business. Madí was considered one of the members of the so-called General Staff of the procés and it is being investigated whether he was behind the Tsunami Democràtic, a channel that articulated the protests after the sentence against the pro-independence leaders. Part of the information about the Tsunami was sent to the central court 6 of the National Court, which still maintains an open case still declared secret and without any accused.
The magistrate decided to open a separate piece to inquire about the contacts that Madí established in his activity as a "lobbyist". Specifically, he was investigating the contacts that he initiated with the Generalitat to obtain new licenses for VTC vehicles and new concessions for water management. Madí did not obtain any of those licenses, with which the judge concludes that there could be no influence peddling. "It can be deduced that the alleged influence that David Madí intended to have was not such, since both businesses ended in the worst possible way," says the judge in his order.
"The truth is that David Madí did not achieve any of his objectives because a new license for VTC vehicles was granted to the competing company directed by Mar Alarcón, linked to the ERC political party, while Madí exercised his sphere of influence rather in the sphere of the old CDC, currently JuntsxCat. Regarding Aiguas de Catalunya, of which Madí was president", he adds.
The investigation that triggered the Volhov operation in October 2020 and in which 21 people were arrested, began after the police found two recorded conversations between Xavier Vendrell and David Madí with the former head of international relations of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, Víctor Terradellas, in which there was talk of the possibility of receiving the support of 10,000 Russian soldiers when independence was declared.
The case, despite the fact that it was initiated by the National Police, ended up being referred to the Civil Guard, who demanded to tap the phones of David Madí, the editor Oriol Solé, the former ERC minister, Xavier Vendrell, and the businessman and president of the Pro-Seleccions platform. Esportives Catalanes, Xavier Vinyals, considered the main protagonists of an alleged plot to divert funds to finance activities linked to the procés. The judge endorsed the wiretapping but with the fierce opposition of the Prosecutor's Office who denounced that it was a hasty and prospective investigation.
