Daniel Esteve, 53, head of Desokupa, knows what it's like to be detained. The Mossos investigated and arrested him twice more than a decade ago. Back then, I was in morososbcn.com, a debt collection business. The website was already a declaration of intent: "Expeditious collections, no invoice and money B". On both occasions it came to nothing because it acted to the limit of the law, police sources explain. And because in the second arrest, in 2008, the GEI – the special intervention groups of the Mossos – burst the testicle with a stun grenade to the worker who traveled with him in a Porsche Cayenne. "That diluted everything," they add.
The charismatic leader of Desokupa, a company between extrajudicial evictions and the far-right fashion brand, has resurfaced with the municipal elections. Turned into a successful youtuber, Esteve has spurred an artificial conflict in the Bonanova neighborhood of Barcelona, with some squatters who have been in two houses owned by Sareb, known as the bad bank, for more than seven years. "He knows how to see where the business opportunity is," say other police sources. On May 11, he captured all the attention for calling a protest in front of La Ruïna and El Kubo, the two buildings in question, which ended without incident, in a city where occupations fell last year by 18%, although it is still at the head of Spain.
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Esteve started in the 90s in the world of nightlife security. There, these same sources indicate, the first opportunities of the debt collection business were born. With two or three people – "I went with one of those who appeared in the Zumosol ad, which they called El zumo, and he said he was Russian to be more scary" – they used "expeditious" ways to get that money. "He would call, he would be on good vibes with the person, and then he would appear with two or three more," police sources recall. "I'm telling you for good, because I want to save you trouble. These people, perhaps, call some Colombians," the sources reproduce, as an example, some of the conversations he had. "Intimidating calls, but carefully," they summarize.
Various sources agree that the key, very similar to what happens now with Desokupa, was "performance". One of the debtors who denounced Esteve said that they placed plastics on the ground, took out tongs and saws, as if they were going to cut them. Even if they didn't do anything to them afterwards, the effect was immediate: "I stalked them. And the more you bully, the more fears you give, the less damage you have to do to get what you want," the same sources describe. They also recall another worker who when he took off his shirt had a swastika tattooed on his chest. On morososbcn.com's social networks they posted a video from 25 years ago of Esteve, boxing at the Palau Sant Jordi with a knuckle against Dani el Bolo, another person from the world of nightlife in Barcelona. Esteve KO leaves him and kicks him already on the ground. From the audience chairs fly against Esteve, while he celebrates the victory.
The Mossos investigated the members of morososbcn.com for criminal organization, injuries, threats... Without ever being able to prove it. Esteve always claimed that the police were coming after him for personal reasons. After two setbacks with the Catalan police, in 2015 Esteve made his way into a niche market also derived from the world of security: the vacancy of homes. In several interviews he has said that he helped a friend who had occupied the apartment, and new clients were coming out.
A report from the Mossos details the evolution of the Desokupa company. "They first identified themselves as a private security company and legal representatives of the property," the document explains. After the complaint of intrusion, they began to identify themselves as access controllers and are currently defined as "mediators, lawyers and / or legal representatives of the property". The Catalan police have opened proceedings on 28 occasions against them, for threats, coercion, damage, injuries ... Very complicated crimes to prove in court, without so far there is evidence of convictions against the company.
Esteve is a businessman, police sources say, who dissociate him from the Boixos Nois, Los Casuals and other small groups of neo-Nazi ideology that also grew up in the nineties in the heat of private security and the stands of Barça. "He never bowed to those people," they say. Although he repeats that he is not from any political party, in his networks Esteve has given support to candidates of the extreme right of Vox on several occasions. Its head of the list in Barcelona, Gonzalo Oro Pulido, was the only politician who attended the protest called in the Bonanova on May 11.
The municipal elections in Barcelona have also been a revulsive for the company Desokupa, registered under the name Conscience and Respect 1970, which closed 2021 with losses worth 180,000 euros, according to its accounts, compared to 240,000 profits in 2020. Focused on social networks, where he has more than half a million followers, Esteve has also set up a YouTube channel and announced merchandising actions, such as distributing a thousand t-shirts with his brand.
His activity on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram during the last weeks has been frenetic. Sitting in front of the computer, in the car or at the gates of the City of Justice, with speeches of more than three minutes in a jocular and populist tone, Esteve attacks the squatters, against the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, against the majority of left-wing parties and against anyone who criticizes him. "We are going to make history," he repeats, in his videos, where he has announced a new call for protests for this week in Barcelona. Police sources remember that despite his good omens in the networks, in Bonanova, Desokupa barely gathered half a thousand people.
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