Luis Roldán, former director general of the Civil Guard, in the courts of Plaza de Castilla accompanied by his lawyer, Gonzalo Casado, to testify before the judge for libel, in 1994. Cristóbal Manuel
Luis Roldán died this Thursday at the age of 78 in a room at the San Juan de Dios hospital in Zaragoza, taking his best kept secret to the grave: where are the 10 million euros that he hid in 1993 in the CBI-TDB bank on Rhône street , in the center of Geneva, and who has kept his two mansions in Paris and Saint Barthélemy (French West Indies), the two jewels in the crown of his collection of real estate properties that he saved from judicial seizure.
A fortune that he had accumulated through illegal commissions charged to the construction companies that reformed the barracks of the armed institute that Roldán presided over during the toughest years of the fight against ETA.
The former director general of the Civil Guard served 15 of the 31 years in prison to which he was sentenced by the Supreme Court for leading the biggest corruption scandal of the transition and causing a political earthquake and a crisis that ended almost 14 years of mandates consecutive socialists.
The sentence that was imposed on him, a long string of crimes, is one of the greatest that has fallen on a public official.
But that endless confinement in the women's prison of Brieva (Ávila), where he spent years isolated in a pavilion, and in Torrero (Zaragoza), where he served the third degree, did not help him confess where he hid his treasure, that has never appeared.
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Photogallery: The life of Luis Roldán
A cohort of figureheads moved the money through the so-called
helicopter effect,
compulsively transferring it from one country to another, and made it possible for the last clue of the 10 million to leave its mark on the Overseas Union Bank in Singapore, a tax haven in which it was lost track 27 years ago.
Jack Pierre Aberlé and Jean Henri, the two leading figureheads of this financial circus, died under mysterious circumstances.
The first, in his room in a hospice in Geneva.
The second, a firefighter with no family, was found dead from a gunshot to the head and is buried in the tomb of the anonymous, in the beautiful cemetery of that city.
Two uncomfortable witnesses that lasted very little.
From his collection of flats and chalets, seized by the Justice, Roldán kept the two jewels in the crown: an elegant 255-square-meter flat in Paris at number 3-5 Carrer de General Detrié, opposite the Eiffel Tower, and the villa Marie Blanche, which he gave to his second wife Blanca Rodríguez-Porto on the island of San Bartolomé (French West Indies).
Both are valued at more than four million euros.
When Judge Ana Ferrer, instructor in the case and today a member of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, tried to seize them, they had already been sold through a notary in Annemasse (a French town 10 minutes by tram from the center of Geneva) to the companies Emeraude Vert and Emeraude Bleu.
A simulated sale to avoid confiscation.
The operation was carried out by a Swiss trustee named Roland Costacurta who assured that it was Roldán himself who sent him the money to give credibility to this farce.
When he was released, the judges had only managed to confiscate 8.7% of his debt (about 19 million euros) and they complained that he had not returned anything.
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Luis Roldán dies, the director of the Civil Guard who got rich with the reserved funds
The former director general of the Civil Guard had enjoyed his freedom since 2010. He traveled by bus, almost always dressed in his cap and trench coat, and lived on Tenor Fleta street in Zaragoza, in a 70-square-meter apartment of his parents that he managed to build of judicial seizure.
He still owed more than 17 million to the Treasury.
But every year and for several months, the image of the man who deceived everyone and was about to be appointed Interior Minister by Felipe González disappeared.
His marriage to Natalia Glazkova, a 66-year-old Russian citizen, an educated woman and a lover of classical music, made it easier for her to spend long periods in that country in his company.
The city and where they resided there remains a mystery.
Natalia died several weeks ago, according to people close to the couple.
Since he was released, Roldán told anyone who wanted to listen to him that his entire fortune was kept by Francisco Paesa, 85, the former agent of the Ministry of the Interior who helped him flee from Spain, provided him with the figureheads who hid the money and convinced him to surrender.
The elusive Paesa has outlived his client.
Now, his nephews and disciples, Alfonso and Beatriz, are the ones who serve clients in need in Luxembourg.
But the stubborn version of the man who just died of prostate cancer in his room at the San Juan de Dios hospital in Zaragoza has only been believed by his clappers, those he used to defend himself when he was cornered, or by his hagiographers.
Neither the journalists who discovered the case, nor the judges, prosecutors and experts who investigated it believe his rosary of lies.
Not one of the investigators who followed the case doubted that he kept the stolen money.
“People like Paesa move their clients' money, they don't take it away.
What Roldán tells is unthinkable in the world of organized crime”, explained Alejandro Luzón, the chief anti-corruption prosecutor who investigated the case.
The same opinion was held by Conrado Caviró, the expert, now deceased, who spent seven years examining his accounts.
“I don't believe that Paesa kept Roldán's money.
Those who are dedicated to that are professionals, they do not keep the money they move.
Does Roldán travel to Russia?
What a coincidence!
Russia is the candidate country to take over from Switzerland when banking secrecy is abolished, it can do whatever it wants there”, he stated.
Antonio Asuncion,
the minister who in 1994 had to resign after the escape of the former director of the Civil Guard went even further.
“He lies more than he talks.
She goes as a little sister of charity and I don't believe it.
She's not going to show herself out there.
I'm sure she wears the most threadbare suit.
You should not trust Roldán”, he stated years before he died.
Roldán's lies ended his political career.
One of the Brieva prison officials who watched over Roldán during his toughest years of confinement defines him like this: “This man talked to us about everything except money.
We asked him, but that was a taboo subject.
He smiled and was silent.
We never believed what he told us, he did not seem sincere”.
Luis Roldán threatened for years to "pull the blanket" to try to avoid the action of justice, but he never did it because the blanket never existed.
With his long sentence he paid like the most, but he has died without revealing where the millions he stole 29 years after he was discovered.
The lies he spread still survive him.
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