In June 2018, BBVA quietly opened an internal inquiry into a company called Cenyt. Seven months later the Spanish press made the reason public, and the bank has been explaining itself in one forum or another ever since.
The company is a business intelligence group linked to the retired police chief José Manuel Villarejo, who allegedly tapped phones for the bank in 2004. According to the online outlets El Confidencial and Moncloa.com, which regularly publish Villarejo’s leaked recordings, BBVA used Cenyt to tap the phones of people who could help it fend off an unwanted shareholder: the construction firm Sacyr. In January 2019 AFP reported that the bank was suspected of illegally listening in on journalists, politicians and businesspeople.
What the bank said in 2019
BBVA’s new executive chairman, Carlos Torres, wrote to staff. El País reported that he confirmed the internal investigation and admitted the bank had hired Villarejo’s services through Grupo Cenyt. If the spying were proven, he called it “deplorable.” The bank’s own public statement went a little further than caution, saying that the reports, “if found to be true,” would be “extremely serious.”
The targets, according to the same reports, were Sacyr executives, including its president, Luis del Rivero, and officials of the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which the bank thought favoured Sacyr’s move. Sacyr was eyeing a 3.1% stake and wanted a board seat. Villarejo is alleged to have listened in on up to 15,000 conversations. Sacyr dropped its plans in February 2005.
Spain’s market watchdog, the CNMV, said it would check that BBVA was setting money aside against any fines. Meanwhile the High Court had ordered Moncloa.com, a news site, to hand over its material on “Operation Trampa,” the code name for the alleged work done for the bank.
From inquiry to the dock
Euronews reported that BBVA was placed under formal investigation in July 2019. Francisco González, who chaired the bank from 2000 to 2018 and later stepped down as honorary chairman, has denied wrongdoing. The bank has said it hired the agency but found no evidence of spying, and its 2025 annual report says the facts under investigation do not imply criminal liability for it. No current board member is involved, it added.
In March 2026, Reuters reported that Spain’s anti-corruption prosecutor wanted BBVA fined 181.8 million euros ($208.16 million). For González the prosecutor sought a prison term of up to 173 years, although Spanish law caps what he could actually serve at 15.
On 9 July 2026 the National Court ruled there was enough evidence to send BBVA and 15 other defendants, González among them, to trial. The bank faces charges of bribery and unlawful discovery and disclosure of secrets. Several former executives will be tried with González. Villarejo himself had already been sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2023 in a separate case.
Sources
- Spying scandal: Spanish bank sends letter to employees in wake of spying accusations (EL PAIS English)
- Spanish bank BBVA suspected of corporate spying (Spain in English / AFP)
- Spanish prosecutor seeks more than $200 million fine on BBVA over spying allegations (Reuters, via Global Banking & Finance Review)
- Spain's BBVA bank and former chairman to stand trial over alleged corporate espionage (Euronews)
