Through this judicial procedure, irregularities in the management of the Balenciaga de Getaria museum will be returned to the media after a decade. The project came out to public institutions five times more expensive than the initial budget and, together with this misuse of money, the relations between the two main stakeholders dove the question: One of them is the former mayor of Getaria Mariano Camio, who from this Tuesday until 17 sits on the bench of the defendants and the other is the Cuban architect Julián Argilagos. He has disappeared since 2005 and an international arrest warrant has been issued against him. The National High Court has sentenced him to four years in prison for a crime of murder in Segovia.

The third protagonist of the case is Rolando Paciel, also a Cuban architect, who faces a smaller indictment than Argilagos: It could be fined with EUR 3,600 for a crime of attempted intrusion.

In 1987 the idea of creating a museum dedicated to the well-known Cristobal Balenciaga was born in Getaria and in 1988 the Basque Government began buying pieces from the Balenciaga collection. Since then, the problems have come: in the investigation carried out by the prosecutor’s office, the reference to the “disappearance of some suits and objects from the collection” draws attention, since, as several opposition politicians have denounced in the past decade, the silk scarves designed by Balenciaga for women ended up in the hands of the wives of leaders of the PNV of Gipuzkoa. But since these “transfers” occurred between 1988 and 1990, the prosecution declared the crimes prescribed.

The issue of scarves serves to illustrate the misuse of public goods related to this case, but it is anecdotal compared to what came next. The “Balenciaga case” actually broke out in 2007 and anyone who sees the newspaper archive of the past decade will find a lot of information related to the case.

It was then learned that the Camio-Argilagos tándems took part of the Balenciaga collection to Miami (EE.UU. ), where Argilagos lived, and that some of the pieces they took were not returned in good condition: a wedding dress, three light strips for women – I did not speak – and a casquet designed by Balenciaga, deformed. They were in the public domain and were therefore considered as damages to the assets of the Administration: EUR 150,000

It was only the beginning: as the investigations reviewed the movements of Camio and Argilagos, numerous irregularities emerged. With more than two million euros lost, between the Balenciaga Foundation and its related society Berroeta Aldamar – about 1.2 million the first and about 800,000 euros the second.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Camio had broad management powers both in the Balenciaga Foundation and in the Berroeta Aldamar society and hired Argilagos in 1999, although the title of this architect was not approved in the Spanish state. The "sentimental relationship" between the two is, in the opinion of the Prosecutor's Office, one of the keys to these irregularities.

Although Argilagos was hired for about 500,000 euros, according to the study it paid almost three times and also did not do some of the jobs that had been requested, so others had to be charged with an extra half a million.

As for Camio, according to the study, he used the museum's credit card to repair his car, an Audi A3, ten times, and drank more than 1,000 liters of gasoline of the money that citizens paid for their taxes. Public capital allowed them to travel with Argilagos through the United States: They went to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas, and a little closer, to Paris. All this without forgetting the EUR 35,000 charged by the former woman and the family of Argilagos at the hands of their relatives.

The scandal, which occurred more than a decade ago, has now come to court, following a long process in the National Court. The Prosecutor’s Office closed the investigation in 2014 and the trial was due to begin in April 2018, but the medical problems suffered by the former mayor of Getaria forced the postponement.