Miguel Blesa — Spanish banker and former chairman of Caja Madrid

Career and role at Caja Madrid

As chairman, Blesa presided over an institution that grew through lending, real estate investment and acquisitive strategies characteristic of many Spanish cajas in that era. Supporters credited management for modernization and growth; critics argue that aggressive exposure to the property market and certain governance practices contributed to heavy losses when Spain's housing bubble burst. Caja Madrid later became part of a larger restructuring of the sector that included the creation of Bankia and subsequent state intervention.

Scandal and conviction

After his departure from the chairmanship, Blesa was implicated in a high-profile misuse-of-funds controversy commonly referred to in Spain as the "tarjetas black" (black cards) scandal. Investigations found that corporate credit cards issued to senior executives and board members had been used for private expenses over many years. In February 2017, a court sentenced Blesa to a six-year prison term in connection with the misuse of those cards. The case became emblematic of public concern over governance, transparency and accountability in the financial sector.

Key aspects of the affair included:

• Use of corporate credit cards for personal spending by executives and board members.
• Legal prosecutions that focused on both individual responsibility and institutional failures.
• Broader scrutiny of the regulatory and political framework that had overseen the cajas.

Death and aftermath

On 19 July 2017, Blesa was found dead with a shotgun wound on a private hunting estate near Córdoba. He was 69. Authorities opened an inquiry into the circumstances of his death; media reports described it as a fatal gunshot wound and noted that he had been under legal scrutiny at the time. His death cut short ongoing legal and public debates about responsibility for the banking crisis and the accountability of senior bankers.

Although remembered by some for his role in expanding a major financial institution, Blesa's legacy is dominated in public discourse by the collapse of parts of the Spanish savings-bank model, the financial crisis that followed, and the graft and governance scandals that emerged in its wake.