Early in the morning, it has been known that the operation has been stopped by editor Oriol Soler, former ERC advisor Xavier Vendrell and former Convergència spokesman David Madi. According to police sources, the three detainees were part of the group that planned the referendum and the sovereign strategy together with the leaders of the independence parties and the Government of Catalonia. It has later been known that the head of the cabinet of former President Puigdemont, Josep Lluis Alay, as well as the businessman Xavier Vinyals and the chairman of the platform to support the Catalan national teams, have also been arrested.

The investigations of Judge Joaquín Aguirre began with a case of corruption in the Barcelona Parliament and after the arrest of the former Victor Terradellas party’s international relations officer linked him to Puigdemont to show that they paid public money for the office expenses that the former President of the Generalitat set up in Waterloo. The arrests on Wednesday are part of a secret piece of the same case in which they were arrested.

Reference persons in Catalan society

Among the detainees, Madí was the right hand of Artur Mas during the period when CiU was in opposition. When convergence returned to the Generalitat in 2010, Madí went to the private sector to advise several companies, including those of the Ibex-35.

Vendrell, a veteran ERC militant, was secretary of Republican organization between 1996 and 2006. From 1999 to 2006 he was a deputy in the Parlament of Catalonia, and in that year he was appointed as Board of Governorate of the Govern Government together with the PSC and ICV, but one month later he was dismissed from office together with the expulsion of ERC from the Govern, the last decision related to the conflict with the Statute of Catalonia. Although far from the front line of politics, Vendrell has remained a very heavy person around CKD.

Soler created the group Cultura 03 and currently runs the editorial Som, which is the driving force of the editorial Ara Llibres, the magazine Sàpiens and the Barcelona edition of Time Out, among others. In the 2015 Catalan elections he was one of the leaders of the campaign of the Junts pel Yes coalition.

Alay, a training historian, was for a brief period coordinator of the international policies of the Presidency, with Quim Torra at the head of the Govern Government, but soon went on to head the office of former president Puigdemont. Personal friend of the head of Junts. Among other things, he accompanied him during his stay in Finland in March 2018.

Xavier Vinyals is an entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector who also participated in the so-called "General Staff" of the independence process. He was Chairman of the Esportives Pro Seleccions platform in Catalonia and Vice-Chairman of the Olympic Committee in Catalonia (COC).