When the Guardia Civil’s Unidad Central Operativa (UCO) traced the money behind the audios about Pedro Sánchez’s father-in-law, investigators found that PSOE had routed the payments through its campaign agency, IKI Group. Agency executives confirmed this. The move put a little-known media outlet at the center of a tense political operation.
Testimony gathered by UCO and sent to the Audiencia Nacional shows that IKI Group’s director of accounts, Mónica Hurtado de Mendoza, said PSOE hired her agency for the 2024 European Parliament elections and other major party events. But the party told her to pay Crónica Libre, a small outlet run by journalist Patricia López. The amount was 18,000 euros for audios from former commissioner Villarejo about the saunas of Sánchez’s father-in-law. Some reports put the amount at €18,125.80 (€14,980 plus VAT), describing the transaction as a campaign advertising invoice rather than a one-off payout.
Hurtado de Mendoza said PSOE headquarters directly ordered her to pay Crónica Libre. She also wrote an internal email questioning the high budgets going to several small outlets, including Crónica Libre, which she described as a group with “little capacity” to handle such sums. Despite her concerns, the party pressed ahead, seeking to expand Crónica Libre’s role in the European campaign.
Further evidence came from IKI Group’s negotiation chief, Fernando Payero. He told investigators he would never have chosen Crónica Libre for the campaign, calling it “low entity” with little impact. PSOE, he said, set the terms and budget, initially up to 20,000 euros, far more than the outlet could handle. The amount was eventually cut because Crónica Libre could not provide more advertising.
Internal emails show that PSOE also considered adding another 5,000 euros to the payment after a request from party communications head Meritxell Blasco. IKI Group warned that Crónica Libre had already used all its ad formats. Further spending would require taking money from other regional outlets, so the extra payment was dropped.
Several Spanish media outlets citing UCO materials have reported that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is also reviewing whether EU funds were involved in the payment scheme. That remains a line of inquiry, not an established fact in court.
IKI Group staff, including Mario García, said they struggled to get basic campaign data from Crónica Libre. After the campaign, García reported that the outlet’s founder provided only a verbal figure of 107,000 impressions, with no report or audited figures. The agency emailed requests for the missing data but received no reply.
The testimony and documents collected by UCO suggest that the payments to Crónica Libre may have rewarded loyalty or secured sensitive material, with actual campaigning a secondary concern. The investigation is ongoing. The case shows how political strategy and media influence can blur when party money is involved in Spain’s election system. Agency staff openly questioned the payments’ logic and size, a sign of how unusual the operation was. For PSOE, the fallout reaches beyond one payment, raising questions about trust in its campaign practices and bringing increased scrutiny of its finances.
