"These are the savings of a lifetime work, mine and my parents´ ", assured José Ángel Fernández Villa when he arrived, in November 2012, to Jose Manuel Fernández´s office, by then tax advisor for the Mining Fund and the person in charge of regularising 1,2 million euros. At least that´s what Fernandez assured in his three-hour long statement to judge Begoña Fernández and the Anti-corruption prosecutors Carmen García Cerdá and Ignacio Stampa last 1st June. Fernández was neat in his description of this key moment in the "8% plot" investigation. Villa arrived with the money in bags, helped by José Antonio Postigo, as he was so impaired that he couldn´t hold the weight. He had to count the money, as he didn´t know how much he had, and even more it came in a mess. Finally, he left without asking how much he owed.
Fernández had already helped Postigo out with a petty tax problem. He was opened an inspection for the villas working in Mayorga (Valladolid) and Fernández, who also did personal favours to the Mining fund executives, took the matter to him. It was then when some money came to light "some money he had been given by his father, who had sold some land in Torre del Mar, Málaga, during the "real state boom" ". Postigo was sanctioned.
Then, the regularisation took place. "Postigo tells me later on: "A friend of mine told me that there is now a tax regularisation and I have some more money of that my father gave me. Couldn´t I do that?". I told him he could, as contributions, but he told me that his father was unwell and that he couldn´t ask him to do anything. He requested me to prepare the documentation and some days later he comes to me and says: "listen, and José Antonio, who also has some inherited money, and is divorced from his wife and doesn´t have the money in accounts and is now going to get married with her again?". I told him, well, ok. "As far as I know, he is not a drug, arms or human beings dealer. There is no problem", he assures.
Apparently, Villa didn´t want to put it in Caja de Ahorros, and he wanted the advisor to do it as he was a well-known person. "One day he comes to my office with all the money and said: "These are the savings of a lifetime work, mine and my parents´. First time I was facing Villa. The money was in a mess. In Santander Bank I was rejected, as I wasn´t a client. I commented it with BBVA´s lawyer and he told me that there was no problem. The money stayed in the office that day, not in my safe box in Santander bank" he assured.
To the prosecutors and the judge, Fernández insisted that he had had a bad feeling about it. "I never thought that any of these people were into something illegal", he assured. Anyway, the decision of legalising it "was taken by him", but anyway he considered it correct to declare it to the Treasury. What is true is that "Villa´s amount of money was quite big". He had to take it to the bank with a colleague, "as it was too heavy just for one person". To the office, Villa took the money with Postigo. "Postigo didn´t have to count it, Villa did, as he didn´t know how much there was. In fact, there were some euros left over which he kept. There would probably be some €500 banknote, explained Fernández.
The prosecutors were highly interested in knowing whether both of them took the money together and shared it. "It was taken in bags. Postigo helped Villa, due to his personal condition. I met a decaying person. Villa couldn´t carry them", he assured. He saw him twice, the day he took the money and the following day, to sign the legalisation. For the operation, he didn´t see a penny. "And I didn´t ask him for anything, and he didn´t ask me how much he owed me", told the consultant. In the end, both of them have ended up engaged in the same crime.
