A FORMER bank manager facing six years in jail for embezzlement has been found shot dead in a field this morning (Wednesday).
Miguel Blesa, director of the now-defunct Caja Madrid – which was bailed out by the State with EU funds and merged with Bancaja to form Bankia – had been sentenced in February for multi-million tax fraud linked to company credit cards.
He and other directors, who include top businessmen and PP politicians, had used their cards for everything from holidays to expensive champagne and registered them as work expenses, meaning they were offset against their tax bill.
Blesa had appealed his sentence, mainly to buy himself more time.
He had arranged to go out hunting with a group of friends in an area of farmland in Villanueva del Rey (Córdoba province) belonging to some business associates from the company Prasa Group, known as the Puerto del Toro, but ended up setting off alone at dawn.
Later, at around 08.00, he was having breakfast with a friend nearby when he excused himself, saying he needed to move his car.
Blesa's friend heard a gunshot seconds later and called his security guard, who contacted the emergency services.
They found his body in the garage with a single bullet wound in the chest, fired using a hunting rifle.
Police are trying to ascertain whether his death was a suicide, murder, or whether he accidentally pulled the trigger.
Blesa, 69, was one of several high-profile figureheads – along with former PP economy minister and ex-International Monetary Fund (FMI) chairman Rodrigo Rato – who were appealing their prison sentences over the Caja Madrid company credit card fraud scam.
They had not been remanded in custody as the judge did not consider them a flight risk, nor that they would attempt to destroy the evidence.
Blesa told the judge in charge of the case back in December 2014 that he planned to retire, meaning he would no longer receive any income other than his pension which could be embargoed.
But his assets were seized to cover the €16 million civil liability bail bond the judge imposed on him.
He and Rato had spent a few days in jail in 2013, but both of them paid their bail release fee of €2.5m and got out of custody.
Later that year, Blesa was jailed again for an offence mixed up in his management of Caja Madrid, but these charges against him were dropped and once again, he was released.
Part of the case against him involved his knowingly having bought out a bank in Florida, USA, with Caja Madrid funds, despite knowing that the company shares were worthless and that doing so would cause the entity to collapse.
Other charges included wage top-ups in cash he and his board received from the bank, and money-laundering and tax evasion after his name showed up in the infamous 'Panamá Papers' leak.
