About a year ago, Spain’s Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit began investigating Juan Carlos Monedero Fernández, university professor and founding member of the political party Podemos. He was suspected of issuing a false invoice in an attempt to hide the reason for having received a €26,200 EUR payment from a South American company called Neurona Consulting.
Monedero claims these charges constitute his fee for consultancy services rendered, and police services went on to wade through emails and other documentation provided by the political science professor to prove his case.
Apparently, however, the documents in question concerned other activities, namely his lecture visits to various Latin American universities and other institutions. In addition, the emails he submitted were presented in printed form, making it impossible to confirm their dates, and without the attached documents they reference.
The police investigation resulted in a report that was published on March 4th. This report describes the invoice as having been created “ad hoc” to mask the real reason Monedero received the money.
There are indications that Monedero’s charges point to a larger architecture of illegal financing of Podemos by the Venezuelan government. It is also the case, however, that previous investigations into the party’s finances have been archived without definitive evidence of illegal activity having been brought forward.
