Since the end of February, the Spanish press has not stopped revealing details – with evocative photos and supporting videos – of this scandal known as the “Mediator Case”, which affects several businessmen and some members of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). .

It is a sordid case of corruption involving bribes, prostitution, drugs and a socialist deputy as one of the main protagonists, which brings trouble to the party of the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, at the beginning of an election year that seems turbulent for left.

A retired general of the Civil Guard who hid more than 60,000 euros in a shoebox, an evening in a brothel in Madrid, nights in a luxury hotel with Viagra, cocaine and prostitutes chosen from a catalog…

In the center of controversy falls on Juan Bernardo Fuentes, known as “Tito Berni”, a socialist deputy from the archipelago of the Canary Islands who was forced to resign by his party in February, shortly before being arrested, along with his cousin and some businessmen.

There is also the businessman Marco Antonio Navarro, the mediator of the whole plot, the center of the investigations carried out by a court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

At the moment there is 13 detaineesonly one went to jail.

According to a legal document consulted by AFP, Fuentes, a 60-year-old politician, would have assisted companies in exchange for financial compensation to win public contracts, receive European subsidies or avoid health inspections during the Covid-19 crisis.

How the network worked

To take advantage of this support, “The first step” consisted of making “a bank transfer of 5,000 euros” to a sports association chaired by the deputy through a Canarian businessman, Antonio Navarro – whose pseudonym, “The Mediator” – gave the case its name.

For additional costs of about 3,000 to 3,500 euros more, businessmen could enjoy private visits to the Congress of Deputies, as well as party nights in discos and in a four-star hotel, the court document states.

According to Antonio Navarro himself, who has given interviews in several Spanish media in recent days, They also hosted a dinner in Madrid attended by 15 socialist deputies during a pandemic, despite the health restrictions in place.

These revelations caused great discomfort within the Socialist Party, which is deeply concerned about isolating this crisis three months before the municipal and regional elections scheduled for May 28 and only nine of the legislative elections scheduled before the end of 2023.

“It’s disgusting behavior,” said Félix Bolaños, presidential minister and right-hand man of Pedro Sánchez, who came to power in 2018 thanks to a no-confidence vote against the previous conservative government, shaken by a massive corruption scandal at the time.

“It seems incredible to me, apart from the politics, I am personally disgusted with it,” emphasized the Minister of Agriculture Luis Planas, also of the Socialist Party, a formation that has made the fight against prostitution one of its battlehorses and has recently year a bill to penalize customers.

Expulsion of the deputy

The PSOE defends itself by recalling that it immediately expelled Juan Bernardo Fuentes. The party applies “zero tolerance” towards corruption, the president of the socialist group of the Congress of Deputies, Patxi López, assured.

However, the reaction was not enough to calm criticism from the People’s Party (PP, right), which – along with the far-right formation Vox – demanded that a parliamentary commission of inquiry be set up to “resolve the political responsibilities” derived from the Mediator case.

“It’s so crass, it’s so shady, it’s so embarrassing and it’s doing so much damage to politics and institutions that we can’t go on like this,” said PP president Alberto Núñez Feijóo, accusing the PSOE of ” don’t offer all the information they have.”

With this case, the government has “lost the honor and trust of the Spanish people”, emphasized PP President Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Conservatives, who are demanding early parliamentary elections to be held from May in which the polls to designate them as winners.