Overview
- On Tuesday, June 23, 2026 General Luis Peláez told the Audiencia Nacional that he judged a source warning of a campaign against the UCO to be reliable and that an internal 'nota de despacho' said the director general may have had knowledge of the strategy.
- Commander Juan Manuel del Barco disputed statements by UCO leaders and said he was surprised that Rafael Yuste and Alberto López Malo later claimed they had been told to 'put themselves to one side' in sensitive probes.
- Del Barco, acting as secretary to the DAO, sent the order that opened an 'información reservada' to trace the leak of WhatsApp messages between Pedro Sánchez and José Luis Ábalos, a leak reporters say was self‑published by Ábalos and not obtained from the UCO.
- Recordings in the case connect ex‑PSOE activist Leire Díez to a network that sought to discredit the UCO and show she met the director general Mercedes González on three occasions, two of which González acknowledged in a Senate appearance.
- Judge Santiago Pedraz continues to investigate amid sharply conflicting statements, with the inquiry focused on who knew what inside the Guardia Civil and whether any actions improperly tried to influence UCO work, a matter that could affect the unit’s credibility in major political cases.