Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a high-ranking official in the Government of the Community of Madrid, has been working for months to defend businessman Alberto González Amador, the boyfriend of his boss, President Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who was involved in pandemic commissions. This successful middleman earned two million euros in a few days in 2020 by connecting a seller and a buyer of masks. However, Ayuso’s partner defrauded the tax authorities of more than 350,000 euros over two consecutive years (2021-2022) by submitting fake invoices to claim expenses that never existed, avoiding paying high amounts of taxes. When tax inspectors uncovered these two major frauds, Ayuso’s boyfriend feigned regret, claiming it was an error and eventually repaying the owed amounts to the tax authorities.
The middleman discovered in 2023, through a tax inspection, that he had committed two serious crimes in 2021 and 2022 and tried to cover up his past with money by declaring non-existent revenues in a corporate tax return, resulting in a much higher payment than he owed for that year. However, his attempt to rectify his frauds came too late, as once a tax or criminal investigation has begun, debts for previous periods cannot be regularized or alleged crimes corrected in subsequent years. Ayuso’s partner, who has been living with her for several years, purchased a 1.2 million euro apartment after profiting from the mask trading. Uncovered in his tax frauds, he attempted in February to soften the impending prison sentence by proposing a plea deal to the prosecutor, admitting guilt, paying a half-million euro fine, and reducing the sentence to eight months to avoid jail time.
When eldiario.es revealed this tax evasion story in March, the misinformation machine of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and her chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, went into action. With the help of complicit media, they spread lies to defend a confessed tax evader. Ayuso publicly proclaimed her boyfriend’s innocence, despite him already having confessed and offered a plea deal to reduce his jail time. This was the first major falsehood in the story, as Ayuso had become aware of her partner’s confession and plea deal a month earlier. She manipulated the truth, claiming that the tax authorities owed her boyfriend 600,000 euros, when in reality, he had attempted an illegal regularization to avoid trial and prison.
Rodríguez also engaged in spreading misinformation to protect the tax evader, calling sympathetic media outlets to disseminate information about an email included in the case against González Amador. Despite inaccuracies in the media reports, the prosecutor had indeed offered a plea deal for tax evasion, as proposed by the middleman’s lawyer a month earlier. The falsehoods continued as Rodríguez claimed that the offer had been withdrawn due to higher orders, which was later proven untrue. Despite ongoing attempts to discredit the truth, the prosecutor has maintained support for the plea deal, pending a judge’s decision on appeals to investigate additional crimes.
Despite ongoing efforts to spread misinformation, the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, has been summoned by the Supreme Court to investigate whether he leaked the email where González Amador confesses his crimes and proposes a plea bargain. This document helped refute the lies, restore the truth, and uphold the reputation of the prosecutors in a judicial process tainted by the falsehoods of Ayuso, the girlfriend of the tax evader, and Rodríguez, her chief of staff. The battle against misinformation continues as Ayuso and her allies strive to protect a criminal from facing the consequences of his actions.
