A FORMER bank manager facing six years in jail for embezzlement has been found shot dead in a field this morning (Wednesday).
Miguel Blesa, director of the now-defunct Caja Madrid – which was bailed out by the State with EU funds and merged with Bancaja to form Bankia – had been sentenced in February for multi-million tax fraud linked to company credit cards.
He and other directors, who include top businessmen and PP politicians, had used their cards for everything from holidays to expensive champagne and registered them as work expenses, meaning they were offset against their tax bill.
Blesa had appealed his sentence, mainly to buy himself more time.
He had arranged to go out hunting with a group of friends in an area of farmland in Villanueva del Rey (Córdoba province) belonging to some business associates from the company Prasa Group, known as the Puerto del Toro, but ended up setting off alone at dawn.
Later, at around 08.00, he was having breakfast with a friend nearby when he excused himself, saying he needed to move his car.
Blesa's friend heard a gunshot seconds later and called his security guard, who contacted the emergency services.
They found his body in the garage with a single bullet wound in the chest, fired using a hunting rifle.
Police are trying to ascertain whether his death was a suicide, murder, or whether he accidentally pulled the trigger.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com