The False Bomb Under Sánchez’s Car a Case of Political Disinformation

The Spanish government is experiencing a period of intense political turbulence. This follows the repeated use by several ministers of a false statement claiming that a police officer had uttered threats about an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

It all began with a fabricated news report published by media outlets asserting that Juan Vicente Bonilla, a former captain of the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit, had fantasized about placing a bomb under the prime minister’s car.

However, independent media soon revealed that the actual content of the conversation was precisely the opposite. The officer had, in fact, joked that the government itself might plant a bomb to retaliate against him, possibly because of the corruption investigations he was conducting. Those inquiries directly affected figures close to power, such as Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez; his brother, David Sánchez; and former minister José Luis Ábalos.

The Investigations Conducted by Bonilla

Bonilla’s concerns stemmed from UCO’s central role in complex corruption investigations that had reached high political levels. The most prominent of these is the so-called Koldo case or masks plot, an investigation examining alleged bribes and irregularities in mask procurement during the pandemic.

At the heart of this affair is Koldo García Izaguirre, a former adviser to José Luis Ábalos, who was then minister of transport. UCO’s work in this matter led to the arrest of García and others, with focus placed on emergency public contracts awarded to companies lacking sufficient qualifications. This brought to light strong suspicions of corruption and influence peddling. The investigation also involved a high-ranking ministerial official and several entrepreneurs.

Alongside this, UCO was also engaged in inquiries concerning the prime minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez. Accusations against her, brought by an association, revolve around alleged influence peddling and corruption in business dealings, referencing meetings with entrepreneurs and her involvement in university chairs receiving funding from companies that later received favorable public contracts.

While UCO was not formally tasked with a direct investigation into Gómez, information or discoveries made during other inquiries may have pertained to her. Adding to this are separate investigations impacting the prime minister’s brother, David Azagra, also known as David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón. A Badajoz court is conducting these inquiries for alleged offenses against public administration and embezzlement, connected to his role as director of the Performing Arts Office for the province of Badajoz.

What Bonilla’s Messages Revealed

The tense, suspicious atmosphere born from these inquiries, which involve individuals close to the government, explains Bonilla’s likely ironic concerns. UCO’s investigations, especially the Koldo case, triggered immense political and media pressure, uncovering deep divisions between state institutions and political power. As legal proceedings continue, Spain observes a fiery debate, with the government and opposition accusing each other of exploiting justice and the media.

Amid these strains, RTVE, the Spanish public broadcaster, disavowed and corrected the false news about Bonilla it had helped spread, confirming the officer expressed fears contrary to those attributed to him. The correction, arriving after days of controversy, did not calm emotions; instead, it fueled them, showing how misinformation can worsen already complicated institutional crises.

The WhatsApp messages RTVE accessed between Juan Vicente Bonilla, a former UCO captain, and businessman José Luis Caramés suffered severe media misrepresentation. While some news outlets presented decontextualized excerpts as proof of an alleged plot, a full analysis of the conversations showed entirely different content.

In their five-year exchange, from 2016 to 2021, the two employed sarcastic and hyperbolic tones to discuss the political situation. The most debated episode dates to June 8, 2021, when Caramés mentioned the possibility of receiving a military honor, the Laureada de San Fernando, and Bonilla replied with a challenging joke: “Or a sticky bomb under the car,” then adding, “I’m telling you, some Venezuelan hitman.”

These phrases, taken out of context, were interpreted as a threat to the government. In reality, a full review showed Bonilla was ironically describing the danger he himself faced as an inconvenient investigator, engaged in sensitive inquiries concerning Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s inner circle.

Many media outlets mistakenly interpreted these messages as a threat from Bonilla to the prime minister. Among them was El Plural, which accused Captain Bonilla of a series of serious behaviors, suggesting a plot to overthrow Sánchez’s government. The newspaper highlighted his alleged tendency to support the use of violence, citing specific phrases. Bonilla supposedly mentioned using “alto y plomo” — an expression that refers to the use of lethal force — and specifically a “bomba lapa,” or sticky bomb.

According to El Plural, these phrases stemmed from private conversations with a confidant, in which Bonilla supposedly voiced deep despair over election results that kept Sánchez in power. The newspaper also connected Bonilla to the so-called UCO patriótica, an alleged group that, per the accusations, worked to destabilize the executive.

How Private Messages Are Politically Weaponized

During the peak of the news’s spread, and even after subsequent denials, numerous government figures continued propagating the distorted version. These included at least four ministers, such as government spokesperson Pilar Alegría, Deputy Prime Minister María Jesús Montero, and notably, Transport Minister Óscar Puente. Puente was among the first to share the false news on X via a laSexta report that unfairly accused the UCO officer of making terrorist threats against the prime minister.

In the same post, Puente made a peculiar political connection, linking the incident to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid since 2019. This implicitly drew a parallel between alleged extremism and her decision to hire Bonilla.

The PSOE’s official X account went further, posting a video in which Alegría — the government spokesperson and general secretary of PSOE Aragón — stated: “We are hearing these days that a former UCO agent, paid and hired by Ms. Ayuso, even threatened to place landmines under the prime minister’s car,” a demonstrably false claim that far exceeded the already questionable content of the original chats.

Also from the PSOE ranks, the finance minister, María Jesús Montero, said during a public interview that it is intolerable for a high-ranking official to refer to Sánchez with death threats. She reiterated that what Spaniards are seeing and reading from the circulated chats, involving someone currently receiving a public salary, who refers to the prime minister with death threats, is intolerable.

The Government’s Reaction to Disinformation and Its Failure To Issue a Correction

These are just a few of the many political figures who targeted Bonilla without hesitation. Despite corrections, the controversy continued to grow. The Spanish government, while avoiding explicit accusations of a bomb, persisted in condemning those private conversations as incitement to violence. To defend himself against these accusations, Juan Vicente Bonilla appeared on El Programa de Ana Rosa, explaining how the seemingly compromising language fell within normal investigative procedures. He clarified that in undercover operations, agents often must adopt fictitious identities and behaviors that, if judged out of context, might seem inappropriate or even unlawful.

The technical explanation went unheard in the whirlwind of political instrumentalization. What could have remained a judicial matter transformed into a media spectacle, where investigative complexities were crushed by the logic of partisan conflict.

One does not need to be a communication expert like Rodrigo Blázquez, the laSexta journalist who helped spread this baseless news, to know that proper conduct involves admitting mistakes and providing clarifications — as Blázquez himself did. The political class, however, behaved differently: none of the main accusers retracted their statements or showed remorse after the manipulations came to light.

Podemos, the government’s coalition ally, called the PSOE’s behavior "deplorable." "The Socialist Party keeps making one mistake after another," said spokesperson Pablo Fernández, in a rare moment of agreement with the opposition. The criticism underscored how serious the government’s misstep truly was.

This scandal, now reaching beyond Spain’s borders, exposes a harsh truth about modern politics. The same government that spent months attacking so-called purveyors of fake news must now confront the same tactics within its own ranks. What unfolds is a classic dynamic of contemporary power: moral condemnation of certain methods does nothing to stop their use when politically expedient.

Accusations of media manipulation, once wielded by Sánchez’s government solely against outsiders, now boomerang back on those who launched them. The issue is no longer about right or wrong. Instead, it reflects an entrenched system where calls to expose media distortion themselves become tools of distortion — a dangerous shift eroding the very foundation of fact-based public debate.

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