In 1991 Jesús Gil wanted Maite Zaldívar, whom he truly feared and called in private "viper", to join his political party GIL (Grupo Independiente Liberal), but she insisted that her husband Julián Muñoz be the one on the lists of the party created ad hoc by the controversial former president of Atlético de Madrid.

Twelve years later, the great scandal would break out. Julián and Isabel Pantoja began a sentimental relationship that caused a political earthquake in Marbella, the consequence of which was a motion of censure that ousted Muñoz from the council seat. But before the sentimental relationship between the politician and the folkloric was made public, the three denied it over and over again.

It was then that the public met Maite Zaldívar. Sitting next to her still husband at a press conference, forced "for the balls" by Gil and Gil, they denied what was already evident and popular voice: that he was attached to the Sevillian singer. Maite would end up exploding days later by entering Canal Sur by phone to confirm that her husband had started an affair with the singer.

Maite became a public figure. He exuded rancor in 645 lines and starred, in a remembered television moment, in a connection with the Telecinco program A tu lado, presented by Emma García, in which he spoke of the famous garbage bags with which, according to her, he came home her husband with commissions for building permits.

Maite represented for many on television the prototypical image of the corrupt consort of the Spain of bricks. Maxi glasses, fashionable highlights, large earrings, artificial tanning... A style, for many, tacky and ostentatious that made her nicknamed "the Christmas tree" in some television corridors due to the number of accessories she always wore .

However, cameras were not new to Maite. Before her name was forever associated with a story of jealousy, infidelity and political corruption and, of course, long before going to prison, Maite Zaldívar tried to succeed in show business.

A Miss Driving School is uncovered

Maite was born in Castellón de la Plana in May 1957, the daughter of a civil guard and a housewife. In the mid 70's she tried to succeed in the show business world. In 1973 she got a rather curious beauty title: Miss Driving School. The most striking thing about that triumph is that it always appears in the biographies of Norma Duval, when Purificación Martín Aguilar was still assigned to her.

The world of driving schools was not unknown to Maite since the man with whom she had her eldest daughter, Elia, a man from Ronda, was the owner of a driving school.

Maite, already with the Miss Driving School band, tried her luck in the world of cinema. Those were the years in which the uncovering fashion began, timidly in Spain, the years of double versions in movie theaters and of the timid topless. The full nude of María José Cantudo had not yet taken place in La Trastienda, which unleashed the fashion for total disclosure after forty years of Francoist censorship. It was the time when breakout stars such as Nadiuska, Bárbara Rey or Susana Estrada reigned on billboards. But Maite never came to measure face to face with them.

Maite made her debut, and almost finished, in the cinema with Hold-Up, a snapshot of a corruption, a title that could have a biopic about the Malaya Case. In this film, directed by Germán Lorente and starring the French Nathalie Delon, best known for her marriage to the French star Alain Delon, an unrecognizable Maite can be seen appearing in a sequence along with other young models posing for a photographer and they end up taking off their shirt, revealing their breasts, as can be seen in the photograph that elcierredigital.com unveils today on its front page.

Maite was still involved in one more play in her short film career. It was in Pepita Jimenez. The film, which adapted the classic novel by Juan Valera, was seen by few people, although it caused a great scandal when the film was seized by court order due to non-payment by its producer, the well-known Venezuelan playboy Espartaco Santoni, who arrived in Spain from the hand of his marriage to Marujita Díaz.

At that time Santoni was married to Tita Cervera. He ended up in jail and today Baroness Thyssen paid her bail to end up discovering that her marriage was invalid because Santoni had committed bigamy. Curiosities of fate, Santoni would end up being one of the references of the Marbella jet set, although he died before seeing how the attempt of that star he met in Pepita Jiménez would end up in jail.

Her unsuccessful career as an actress led her to make a living as a waitress at the topless bar La Poupee, on Calle Silva in Madrid. In that place, she Maite and the rest of the girls who worked there, she served canapés to the clients covered with a transparent gauze that exposed her breasts.

According to Julián Muñoz himself in 2014 in his memoirs La cruda verdad, the couple met in that place, where Julián, who was studying medicine in Madrid at the time, went as a client. After getting married, they moved to the town of San Martín de Valdeiglesias (Madrid) from where they moved to Marbella in the 1980s, leaving a trail of debts.

3.5 million illicit euros

Things went very well in Marbella after entering politics. The Justice estimated that at least 3.5 million euros were obtained by Julián Muñoz illegally, hiding a large part of that money apparently abroad. And despite all this enrichment, his income statement was negative, obtaining returns for personal income tax in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 worth, respectively, 1,966 euros, 1,963 euros and 2,099 euros.

During his marriage to Maite Zaldívar there was only one family income unit, with the only support provided by Muñoz (Maite Zaldívar is only known to have income from the municipal company Turismo 2000 in Marbella, in the years 1998 and 1999 , worth 9,593 euros, and his daughter Eloísa, the amount of 3,790 euros for a job in a supermarket). Muñoz earned the net amount of about 52,000 euros from the Marbella Town Hall, an insignificant amount for the great wealth that he managed to gather.

It was from the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 when Julián Muñoz began to part with the funds that he had kept hidden abroad until then, preferably in Switzerland, sending them to his still wife and family as well as to his father. then sentimental partner, the tonadillera Isabel Pantoja.

The bleaching

At first, he used it to dispose of the funds generated, and of allegedly criminal origin, from his then wife Maite Zaldívar, his daughters and his brother-in-law Jesús Zaldívar, who became his alleged figurehead. Later, starting in 2003, he also did it with Isabel Pantoja.

Muñoz had two ways of keeping his darker money:

1) At home, in the famous garbage bags that arrived at his home. This was money that, according to the testimony of Maite Zaldívar, came from the commissions that her then-husband had collected. When he left home, he took this money, which totaled about 300,000 euros, according to what Maite Zaldívar told the Police.

2) The other economic injection, which Maite Zaldívar also received, came from the accounts opened by Muñoz in Switzerland, with the collaboration of a private bank, the entity Ferrier Lullin&Cie SA, later absorbed by the Julius Baer bank .

To this end, Julián Muñoz used his ex-brother-in-law, Jesús Zaldívar, who became his alleged figurehead. This is how several secret accounts were opened in the Ferrier Lullin entity, with bizarre names. Among them, the DAMADENOCHE account. Several deposits were made to this Damadenoche account. The Spanish Justice determined that at least two were carried out for a joint value of 891,000 euros.

The first one, on June 4, 2003, for a value of 601,198.08 euros, from another bank account called “Luna llena”, also opened at the same Julius Baer bank branch. The other, on July 30, 2003, for a value of 290,000 euros, from another bank account called "El Batán", opened at the Swiss company Banque Vontobel Geneve S.A.

Interposed companies

To get this money to Maite Zaldívar, she used an intermediary company called “Meja INC”, registered in the US state of Delaware. Once Meja INC was established, Maite Zaldívar and her brother Jesús de Maite opened two more bank accounts: one, in Gibraltar, at Credit Suisse; and the other, in Marbella, in the Cajamar entity.

Thus, from Switzerland the money was transferred to two accounts opened in Spain. First, via Gibraltar, and from there to Marbella, where at least 577,000 euros arrived. That is to say, from the known data there was a remainder of 314,000 euros without appearing, of which a large part of the Justice thought that they were still in Switzerland and another small part in Gibraltar, according to the police investigation.

The money, once in the Cajamar account in Marbella, was withdrawn through cash withdrawals to, immediately afterwards, carry out another simultaneous deposit in other accounts controlled by the Zaldívar brothers, also opened in the same bank branch in Cajamar.

This is how 112 notes were made, from October 2003 to May 2006, for the withdrawal of the Meja INC accounts for a value of 601,016.79 euros and a payment value in the other Zaldívar accounts for 601,100.90 euros . I mean, everything fits.

Among the companies used by Maite Zaldívar to increase her assets were Outdoor Aventure SL, Alabama Consulting SL, Batua SA and Senior Servicios Generales Madrid SL. This last company was owned by the well-known builder José Miguel Villarroya. However, just three months after its constitution, in March 2000, it was sold to Maite Zaldívar for just 3,500 euros (100 shares at 35 euros each), which she paid with money given to her by her ex-husband Julián Muñoz.

The purchase of the shares of Senior Servicios Generales entailed the acquisition of the properties that belonged to this company, including a 113-square-meter house, with two garages and a storage room, located at Avenida Ricardo Soriano, number 12 , from Marbella. In this way, they were made, at a bargain price (3,500 euros), with said properties.

In addition, the day before the acquisition of Senior's shares by Maite Zaldívar, the mortgage on the aforementioned property was cancelled, so the transfer of the house was made free of all types of charges.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, it was an economic consideration that the businessman Villarroya made to Muñoz in payment of the favors received by him in his actions as mayor and as councilor of some municipal companies for which the builder had billed huge amounts .

The real estate assets of Julián Muñoz and Maite Zaldívar, acquired thanks to illicit funds, were completed with a chalet in the "Las Petunias" urbanization, registered in the name of their daughters, Eloísa Muñoz Zaldívar and Elia Muñoz Zaldívar, both without known income. Later, the property was sold and acquired by the Azalea Beach company, from the Villarroya builder. The acquisition of this house was very profitable for Muñoz and his wife since they did not pay any amount for it, since the entire price of it was paid by subrogation of the mortgage loan. In addition, Azalea Beach paid the VAT corresponding to the transmission operated.

All this framework led the ex-married couple to prison years later. A sentence that, for Maite, came after years turned into a media and television character.