We can denounce to the judge of the 'Neurona case' an attempt to impersonate the person responsible for Facebook

In the front row, from the left, Pablo Iglesias, Ione Belarra, Irene Montero, Juan Carlos Monedero and Idoia Villanueva, at the closing ceremony of the Autumn University of Podemos, last November, in Madrid.Olmo Calvo

Podemos has reported that someone has tried to impersonate the party worker responsible for her Facebook account.

The formation has sent a letter recounting the incident to the judge of

, Juan José Escalonilla, who remains accused of the political force for allegedly irregularly hiring the Mexican consultancy Neurona for the general elections of April 2019. We can grant enormous significance to these events, since part of the case deals with the videos that the American company produced for its account on said social network.

What's more, the party stresses that this identity theft attempt occurred barely a month after the Police's Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) requested their access codes to their Facebook profile, to which they denied formation.

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In the brief sent to the judge, to which EL PAÍS had access, Podemos narrates that on December 11, 2021 an “unknown person went to the [telephone company] Yoigo store located in the Gran Vía de Hortaleza shopping center and, exhibiting documentation that would accredit her [as her worker], posed as her and requested a duplicate SIM card for her mobile phone number.”

The party adds that, immediately, someone managed to enter the employee's account on the Telegram messaging platform;

and that they found that there was access from an unknown IP address.

"We are not aware that any attempt was made with said operation to carry out any type of operation of a lucrative nature (fraud, identity theft in checking accounts, etc.), which in our opinion is indicative that the identity theft operation denounced was What he was looking for was to obtain information on the mobile phone ”, adds the document sent to Escalonilla, head of the Investigating Court number 42 of Madrid.

In this writing, the insinuations against the UDEF are conclusive: "Since [the affected party] is the administrator of the Podemos profile on Facebook and the UDEF is interested in accessing the private profile of Podemos on said social network, it is possible to do so through the option of password recovery through [the worker's] mobile phone”.

According to the political force, in December 2021, the employee went twice to a police station to report what had happened, and even asked the agents to review the video cameras of the shopping center where the Yoigo store was located.

"Although there seems to have been no action in relation to the reported facts, or at least it has not been communicated to her," laments the formation.

The leadership of the party is very aware of another episode that occurred in 2015, when an adviser to Pablo Iglesias, Dina Bousselham, reported the theft of her mobile phone in a shopping center.

She kept files and material on her device that were published by various media;

and a copy of its content was found in the possession of the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo.

Podemos and the UDEF maintain a long battle within the

.

The party has accused this police unit of exceeding its functions, "exceeding" the orders given by the magistrate during the investigation.

The formation went so far as to ask the judge to urge the agents to "behave with the due neutrality expected from public institutions in a rule of law."

For its part, the UDEF made him ugly for not providing his Facebook passwords and even reproached him for presenting expert reports prepared by a technician close to the training to counter their investigations.

Judge Escalonilla closed the investigation period on July 27, but has not yet decided whether to file the case or decide to prosecute someone.

The magistrate is waiting to receive an expert report that assesses the price of the work provided by Neurona to the party, to compare it with the 363,000 euros that was paid to the Mexican consultant.

However, the instructor cannot find who will prepare said document and a dozen companies and professionals have already refused to take on this task.

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