Ex-Catalan chief Pujol’s son summoned before High Court over business deals

High Court Judge Pablo Ruz has summoned the eldest son of former Catalan regional premier Jordi Pujol to appear before him on September 15 as an official suspect in the investigation into his business affairs.

The judge also targeted Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s wife, Mercè Gironès Riera, as an official suspect in the case. The investigation was opened 19 months ago following a complaint filed by Pujol Ferrusola’s ex-girlfriend María Victoria Álvarez Martín over alleged money-laundering operations she witnessed on trips to Andorra, London, Mexico and Buenos Aires.

The decision comes after Pujol senior’s confession that his family has kept an undeclared multimillion-euro fortune outside of Spain.

The 84-year-old politician, who ruled the Catalonia region for 23 years, admitted that the money that his wife and his seven children had accumulated abroad over more than 30 years had only been settled with the Tax Agency in recent days.

Judge Ruz has been gathering Tax Agency reports about the couple’s financial transactions over the last eight years, which total over €32 million

In his statement, Pujol senior explained the large sums of money handled by the family by claiming that his father, Florenci Pujol, passed his fortune on to his grandchildren in 1980.

But a police report concluded that his eldest son’s wealth “cannot be explained by income from the legal economy” and that Ferrulosa “benefited indirectly” from an environment that “generated a network of influences” that reached all the way to “regional agencies” – an apparent reference to his father, Jordi Pujol.

Over the last few months, Ruz has been gathering together Tax Agency reports about the couple’s financial transactions over the last eight years, which total over €32 million.

The judge has also sent a letter of request to Andorra for any related documents at the disposal of Banca Privada de Andorra, as well as information on financial products and funds that the two suspects, or any of the five companies under scrutiny in the case, might have held.