Spanish judge opens new fraud probe into businessman linked to PM’s wife over EU-funded contract

A new piece in the Begoña Gómez case

A third contract awarded to the company of Juan Carlos Barrabés is now under judicial scrutiny, but the probe explicitly excludes Begoña Gómez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The contract, worth 4 million euros and financed with EU FEDER funds, was granted to a UTE formed by Barrabés’s firm Innova Next and consultancy KPMG. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office concluded that the awarding process concealed the absence of a required ‘white paper’, a condition set out in the tender documents. Judge Peinado opened a separate piece of the main investigation on 18 June after receiving a UCO police report that analysed Office 365 communications of 13 Red.es employees, revealing internal messages that the winning bid was evaluated despite not meeting all formal requirements.

Confusion and clarification

Peinado’s initial order did not specify who was being targeted; it listed all participants of the main case, causing momentary alarm that Gómez herself was again under formal suspicion. Within hours, however, the judge issued a second order clarifying that the new proceedings were directed solely at Barrabés. The clarification came after the European Prosecutor had attempted to take over this line of inquiry, but Barrabés successfully opposed that move before the National Court, arguing that the facts had already been under investigation by Peinado for almost two years. The National Court agreed, leaving the matter in the domestic court.

Government and PSOE reaction

Minister for Digital Transformation Óscar López accused the judge of a “prospective investigation” and said that the constant mutations of the case left the wife of the prime minister in “absolute defencelessness”. López called it an “intolerable persecution” and demanded that, some day, someone should apologise and restore the honour of honourable people. The PSOE dismissed the new development as “yet another nonsense”, insisting that Begoña Gómez has no link to that contract. In a counter‑attack, the party called on Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso to explain the money earned by her partner since she took office.

“The investigation is clearly prospective and has consequences for the honour and good name of people.”

“Begoña Gómez has no link whatsoever to that contract.”

Doubts from media and business

Journalist Fernando Berlín questioned the strength of the suspected irregularities, noting that Barrabés is “an absolute reference in the field of new technologies” who has always maintained a very careful attitude in his institutional relations. He pointed out that the formula used in awarding such contracts is the same that large companies have repeatedly employed for years, making it hard to believe that anything relevant will be found. The public broadcaster La Sexta reported that the European Prosecutor’s investigation had originally been a general review of whether EU funds were improperly used through Red.es.

“Barrabés is an absolute reference in the field of new technologies and has always maintained a very careful attitude in his institutional relations.”

Background of the case

Barrabés helped Begoña Gómez set up her university chair at the Complutense in 2020. After that, his companies’ public contracts soared; from Red.es alone he received awards worth 10 million euros. For two of those contracts, Gómez provided letters of recommendation, though not for the contract now under separate investigation. The UCO report underlined that the three contracts were processed in parallel and showed important similarities. The main Begoña Gómez case remains tense, as the judge has yet to decide whether to open an oral trial and whether to impose precautionary measures, after Madrid’s Provincial Court in February reproached him for sending her to trial without even listing the evidence supporting that decision.