Ex-Caja Madrid chief wants bank’s insurance to pay €16 million bond
Miguel Blesa faces asset freeze after court held him responsible for credit card abuse
Former Caja Madrid chairman Miguel Blesa wants the bank’s insurance company to pay the €16 million bond he has been handed in connection with a court investigation into a corporate credit card scandal.
Blesa’s defense has stated that he is unable to come up with such a sum after posting €2.5 million in bail to avoid preventive prison in a related investigation into his management of the lender, which merged with six other regional savings banks in 2010 to create Bankia. This lender had to be bailed out by the state in 2012 after teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
The former bank chief faces a freeze on all his assets if he fails to make the €16 million payment by Wednesday. His lawyer, Carlos Aguilar, has asked High Court investigating judge Fernando Andreu to try to collect the money from Mapfre, the insurance company hired by Caja Madrid to cover contingencies such as civil responsibility, but the judge has turned this option down.
The secret cards did now show up in the bank’s accounts, nor were they mentioned in any job contracts
Blesa is under investigation for his role in either condoning or actively promoting a system that awarded corporate credit cards to top bank officials, including board members appointed by Spain’s main political parties, for discretionary spending. He himself spent €436,700 on his card.
The secret cards did not show up in the bank’s accounts, nor were they mentioned in any job contracts. Nobody declared their spending on their annual tax returns. Yet during the course of a decade between 2003 and 2012, 83 beneficiaries spent a collective €15.5 million on personal expenses such as vacations, African safaris, expensive wine, restaurant meals and supermarket purchases.
Blesa’s successor at the helm of Caja Madrid and then Bankia, Rodrigo Rato – a former International Monetary Fund chief who was also a minister under the previous Popular Party (PP) administration in the late 1990s and early 2000s – is also being targeted in the investigation.
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