A recorded conversation between María Dolores de Cospedal and José Manuel Villarejo reveals her awareness of police payments to Victoria Álvarez and infiltration in the Mossos d'Esquadra, days before the 1-O referendum in 2017. Judge Manuel García Castellón ignored these audios for two years, according to a police report. Operation Catalonia, part of the dirty war against independence, remains largely uninvestigated.
On September 12, 2017, weeks before the 1-O independence referendum, María Dolores de Cospedal, then PP secretary general and defense minister, met with commissioner José Manuel Villarejo at the party's headquarters in Genoa, Madrid. The one-hour-and-two-minute recording captures Villarejo seeking Cospedal's help amid pressures from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and Sepblac. She promises to intervene: “I will talk to Guindos and I will talk to the Prosecutor's Office”.
The discussion turns to maneuvers against the Catalan procés. Villarejo refers to “Vicky”, meaning Victoria Álvarez, ex-partner of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, who continues receiving payments from police reserved funds. “If they detect that Vicky is being paid by the Police, we'll have a mess, don't you think?”, Villarejo asks. Cospedal replies: “Yes, indeed”. Álvarez and Javier de la Rosa, convicted in the Pujol case, received these payments since 2013, when Villarejo was involved in the confession that launched the corruption probe against the Pujol family.
Cospedal also mentions informants in the Mossos d'Esquadra paid with reserved funds and boasts about dismissing the deputy operational directors (DAO) of Police and Civil Guard from the Fernández Díaz era. “What it cost me to get the DAOs changed…”, she says, noting it's a secret her influence over the Interior Ministry under Juan Ignacio Zoido.
These audios, part of piece 32 in the Villarejo case at the National Court, were ignored by Judge García Castellón despite a 2023 police report linking them to the Kitchen case. Operation Catalonia, exposed in 2014, involves espionage and setups against independence figures like Artur Mas and Xavier Trías, but has not progressed in judicial probes. Only Eugenio Pino has been convicted for attempting to introduce illicit evidence in the Pujol case. Piece 32 has acted as an archive for unprosecuted leads, leaving potential crimes tied to the PP's 'political brigade' unpunished.
