In May of 2018, Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, ruled that senior PP officials had enriched themselves with kickbacks and bribes, and had laundered large sums of money with assistance from the criminal underworld. The scandal effectively brought an end to the government of Prime Minister Rajoy later that year, and has virtually annihilated the once robust electoral popularity of the PP.

In 2020, another side of the Gürtel case emerged, which became known as Operation KITCHEN. This refers to an espionage effort that targeted senator Luis Bárcenas, who also served as treasurer of the PP. It was discovered that Bárcenas had in his possession bookkeeping documents that shed light on a secret system for recording illicit bribes paid to PP administrators and senior party figures. For his implication in the Gürtel case, Bárcenas was eventually given a 33-year prison sentence, which he is currently serving.

It appears that, once senior PP executives realized that Bárcenas had these documents in his possession, and that he may share them with the authorities so as to secure a lighter prison sentence for himself, they allegedly set up an espionage operation aimed at preventing Bárcenas’ documents from ending up in the hands of the authorities.

On Monday, however, Rajoy, who served as prime minister from 2011 to 2018, claimed he had no knowledge of any espionage efforts undertaken against Bárcenas. Speaking before a parliamentary committee that is investigating Operation KITCHEN, Rajoy said he had nothing to do with the spy affair. He later told reporters: “I never had any knowledge of the existence of this operation […], so I gave instructions on something I knew nothing about? I don’t know what they [the committee] were looking for”. Rajoy also told the parliamentary committee: “I really don’t care what Mr. Bárcenas [and others implicated in the Gürtel case] might have said about me”.

The investigation into Operation KITCHEN continues.