MadridThat the alleged UDEF report relating Artur Mas – or previously Xavier Trias – to money hidden abroad was false, has been proven for a long time. This Tuesday, the former head of internal affairs of the National Police and one of the people usually connected with Operation Catalonia, Marcelino Martín Blas, also explained that there was no official report linking Mas to tax havens . Not even one about Jordi Pujol. Martín Blas, who has denied having any role in Operation Catalunya, attributed this Tuesday to ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo the manipulation of those documents, which were published in The World. He did so during his appearance in the Congress of Deputies, in the commission that tries to clarify the functioning of the State’s sewers, although, at the moment, he is encountering many difficulties in doing so.
Why does he say that? Martín Blas has reported that once this alleged UDEF report was published in the press, he received the assignment from the former deputy operational director (DAO) of the National Police Eugenio Pino by order of the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz to prepare a report on the document. After analyzing the police documents received from the UDEF, Martín Blas concluded that there is no official report that expressly mentions Artur Mas or Jordi Pujol or their families or a hypothetical transfer of capital to Switzerland or Liechtenstein. Instead, he did receive documentation relating to the enrichment of several people linked to the irregular financing of Convergència, involved in the Palau case. Martín Blas has criticized the preparation of this report to ensure that “it has nothing to do with the Catalonia operation”.
According to the ex-police, certain people have tried to make him responsible for the dirty work of those years. He, in fact, met on June 6, 2014 with the CEO of Banca Privada d’Andorra – where the Pujols did have accounts abroad – to obtain information from the family of the former president of the Generalitat Martín Blas has denied that he went to that meeting to threaten the BPA – its Spanish subsidiary, Banco Madrid, ended up closing shortly after it was linked to international terrorist money laundering – but he did it because, said, they informed him that it was Oliver who wanted to give him information. It was Eugenio Pino who asked him to come to the meeting, he said. “Do you have anything for me?” he remembers asking the former BPA CEO when he saw him. He replied that he had nothing and Martín Blas left, he said. “They were already coming for me,” he warned.
Handling reports
Martín Blas has said that he was not aware that any “patriotic brigade” existed, but that he can guarantee that he was not part of it. However, he did admit that seen in perspective “it seems that there was activity by certain policemen related to politics”. He also explained that he received information in June 2012 from “officials very close to the UDEF” that reports that some inspectors made for “convenience” were being “manipulated”. “They come to me to say that it was traded with them”, he indicated. However, he could not verify the veracity of these allegations because he claims that he was not allowed to investigate no matter how much he reported to the exDAO.
