Spain’s Guardia Civil has arrested six people in a corruption investigation centred on the town hall of Soria, north-central Spain, run by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) for almost two decades.
Four of those held were detained in Soria province and two in the Madrid region, according to the Government’s sub-delegation in Soria, which did not rule out further arrests as the operation continued.
Among those detained was the local councillor for tourism and commerce, Yolanda Santos, along with her husband. The town hall has suspended her duties as a precaution, while the local PSOE branch has asked for her party membership to be frozen and opened an internal inquiry.
Officers from the Guardia Civil’s judicial police unit searched council premises and two private homes during a raid that ran for some 12 hours. The operation is being directed by Soria’s investigating court number 3 and the provincial prosecutor’s office.
Investigators are examining alleged offences of influence peddling, administrative malpractice, prohibited dealings by public officials, document forgery, money laundering and membership of a criminal organisation, all set out in the Spanish penal code.
The inquiry is understood to focus on contracts tied to Biosfera Soria, an environmental education and tourism firm co-founded by Santos that has held municipal work for years. The proceedings have been declared secret, and the sub-delegation said no further detail could be released for now.
Carlos Martínez, the PSOE leader in the Castilla y León region and Soria’s mayor for 19 years until April, said he viewed the investigation with “total tranquillity” and called for restraint while the case remained under seal. He was attending a forum in Tangier, Morocco, when the raid began.
The arrests have come days after the conviction of former transport minister José Luis Ábalos, once one of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s closest allies, in a separate graft case. They add to a widening run of corruption inquiries shadowing the Spanish Government.
Sánchez governs at the head of a fragile coalition that leans on regional and left-wing allies in the national parliament, and his Socialists remain one of the largest delegations among Europe’s social democrats. Each fresh scandal sharpens questions in Brussels and Madrid alike over how long his administration can hold together, though the Prime Minister has so far resisted opposition demands for an early election.
