Tax fraud in Catalonia advances talks
Jordi Pujol, the patriarch of Catalan politics, has admitted conducting tax fraud by hiding money offshore.
Mr. Pujol, 84, founded Catalonia’s governing party, Convergence, and was its leader from 1980 to 2003. During that period, he acted as a bulwark against Catalan separatism by ensuring that the regional government cooperated with different central governments in Madrid.
That cooperation, however, turned into confrontation almost two years ago, after a huge secessionist street march in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, and because of a dispute between Artur Mas, Mr. Pujol’s successor at the helm of Convergence, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over whether Catalonia should receive better financial treatment from Madrid.
Mr. Rajoy and Mr. Mas have barely spoken since, but they are to meet on Wednesday in Madrid to discuss whether Mr. Mas and his coalition government can go ahead with a planned Catalan independence referendum in November. Mr. Rajoy has pledged to block the referendum, saying it violates the Constitution.
Mr. Pujol long ago retired from politics but remains an influential figure in Catalonia. He issued a statement on Friday saying he had hidden money in offshore accounts for more than three decades, having previously denied having any Swiss or other undeclared accounts overseas.
Mr. Pujol said the money had been inherited from his father, shortly after he became head of Catalonia’s regional government.
“I am the only person responsible for the facts described and for all their consequences,” Mr. Pujol wrote. He said he was willing to testify before the courts.
But over the weekend, Catalan opposition politicians called for a new investigation into Mr. Pujol’s offshore money, to determine whether it was inherited or came from kickbacks from Mr. Pujol’s time running Catalonia’s regional government.
Mr. Pujol and some of his seven children have already been investigated for fraud. In 2012, El Mundo, a Madrid newspaper, said the Pujol family had 137 million euros, or about $184 million, hidden in a Geneva bank. Mr. Pujol tried to sue the newspaper for libel, but a judge rejected his lawsuit on the ground that the information was in the public interest and was based on a draft police report.
Separately, one of Mr. Pujol’s sons, Oriol Pujol, resigned this month from Convergence after he was indicted in a bribery investigation into the awarding of licenses to garages that conduct vehicle inspections. A former girlfriend of Oriol Pujol also recently testified that she had driven bags of money on his behalf to Andorra, a banking center across the Catalan border.
Source: NYT
