Joaquín Gadea, reinforcement judge of the National Court, has asked the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police to investigate the alleged payments that some founders of Podemos received from Venezuela, according to what has advanced The world and have confirmed legal sources. The magistrate takes this initiative after Hugo Armando Carvajal, better known as The Carvajal Chicken, who was head of the Venezuelan counterintelligence until 2014, assured that the South American country transferred 142,000 dollars in 2013 – through the company Viu Comunicaciones – to former deputy Carolina Bescansa, and to sociologists Jorge Lago and Ariel Jerez.

In addition, the judge has also commissioned the UDEF to investigate alleged charges from Juan Carlos Monedero and his presence in the Caribbean nation. These measures are part of a case about the alleged irregular financing of Podemos, which was filed in 2016 and reopened this October after the statements of Pollo Carvajal. In recent weeks, the Venezuelan military has provided the National Court with several documents to try to support his accusations. According to legal sources, he also stated that he would provide a list of witnesses who could also verify his words – Magistrate Manuel García-Castellón, head of the Central Court of Instruction 6, where this case is being investigated, had planned to call them under the figure of “protected witnesses ”-.

Since this case was reopened, Podemos has described Carvajal’s statements as mere “defamations.” “There is so much information at this time that has come out about alleged irregular financing of Podemos or about other issues … All this only serves to campaign against Podemos,” said Isabel Serra, a state co-spokesperson for the party. “They try to pretend something ridiculous: that it is a comparison between the corruption of the PP, which has done so much damage, with Podemos. They are fabrications. All this will end in nothing, “he added.

The reopened case dates back to 2016, when a party called the Spanish Civic Union-Party for Peace, Reconciliation and Progress of Spain filed a complaint against Podemos, its leadership and against Pablo Iglesias for the crimes of illegal financing of political parties, a crime tax and money laundering. After analyzing the case, Judge Alejandro Abascal decided to archive it, describing the complaint as “a disorderly set of reproductions of news published in the press in which the accused and other people are attributed with receiving amounts of money from tax havens O risk countries through the company 360º Global Media, supposedly owned by an Iranian citizen, and through the Center for Political and Social Studies Foundation ”.

Carvajal’s accusations came after his capture after spending almost two years on the run from the Spanish justice system and as an attempt to stop his extradition to the United States, which is claiming him to try him for drug trafficking, money laundering and collaboration with the former guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. of Colombia (FARC). His delivery is currently paralyzed, waiting for Washington to send written guarantees to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court on the treatment that Carvajal would receive if he was placed in the hands of the Department of Justice.