Overview

• The Supreme Court is investigating €500,000 in payments made to former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos during 2018 and 2019 under the classification of 'tax-exempt rents and diets.'
• Judge Leopoldo Puente has formally requested the Ministry of Transport to clarify the concept, timing, and destination accounts of these payments.
• The Guardia Civil’s UCO identified two payments of €156,440 and €351,992, which do not appear in Ábalos’s bank records according to their analysis.
• The payments are part of a broader corruption probe into pandemic-related procurement contracts managed by the Transport Ministry.
• The investigation seeks to establish whether these disbursements were legitimate or indicative of financial irregularities during Ábalos’s tenure as minister.