Koldo said the PP offered him money and a way to avoid prison in exchange for information that would harm Sánchez. The source material gives no further details of the alleged offer.
A separate case file is investigating possible fraudulent contract awards within Adif. Searches and arrests followed the disclosure of the inquiry, which is linked in the source to Ábalos.
The developments came against the backdrop of the Urda rail tragedy. On 28 October 2026, a moving high-speed train struck the rear of a stationary train near Urda, in Toledo province, killing 69 people. Pressure for Óscar Puente to resign had grown by Monday, with Frente Amplio joining the PP in calling for his departure. A previous RUSSPAIN report examined risk perceptions after the crash.
Puente announced his resignation on 3 November, six days after the collision, following an approximately four-hour appearance before Spain’s parliamentary Permanent Deputation. He said he had decided to leave within minutes of learning of the tragedy but stayed in office to coordinate the emergency response and start preliminary investigations, with compensation and safety measures also introduced. The government outlined emergency aid for victims and additional rail-safety measures. Reuters reported that the Urda disaster was Spain’s second deadly high-speed rail accident in less than a year, after the Adamuz crash in Córdoba in January; the two crashes killed 115 people in total. Puente told lawmakers that a transport minister could not remain in office after two accidents of such severity within a year. His resignation was to take effect after publication in Spain’s official state gazette.
Pedro Sánchez announced on 4 November that Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Cuerpo would provisionally oversee the Transport Ministry. Puente also withdrew his name from the lists for Spain’s early legislative elections. The president of Adif, Luis Pedro Marco de la Peña, resigned that day after submitting his resignation to Cuerpo, who accepted it. Adif is Spain’s public rail-infrastructure company, responsible for rail infrastructure and the systems that govern signalling and traffic control; its systems came under scrutiny after the Urda collision. At the close of the week, members of Núcleo Nacional were arrested.
