Álvaro Gallego, who served as Carmen Pano's driver on the journey in which the businesswoman claims she transported 90,000 euros in cash to the PSOE headquarters, declared this Thursday in the 'mask case' trial at the Supreme Court that he observed how the woman got out of the vehicle on Ferraz street, in Madrid, carrying a bag with "stacks of bills".
During his testimony as a witness, Gallego has placed that trip at the end of 2020 and has explained that, before heading to Ferraz, they made a stop at some offices of Víctor de Aldama, identified as an alleged facilitator and third accused in the case along with former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos and former ministerial advisor Koldo García.
In those Aldama facilities, he/she has related that Pano delivered a bag with money which, according to what they indicated to him/her, came from businessman Claudio Rivas, interested in obtaining the hydrocarbon license for his company Villafuel.
Gallego has not been able to clarify if the bag that Pano took to Aldama's offices was the same one he later transferred to Ferraz, although he has described the latter as "it was transparent, white, placed inside another larger one".
"It was clear there was money because the bag was open and there were wads of bills," he reiterated, but he admitted that he also doesn't know how to specify the amount it contained nor the identity of the person to whom Pano made the delivery, given that he remained in the car waiting.