20 September: arrests, entries and searches carried out by the Civil Guard

By order of the Examining Magistrate’s Court no. 13 of Barcelona, the Civil Guard carries out 41 searches as part of the investigation into the organisation of the referendum, including searches in the Ministries of Economy, Foreign Affairs and Social Affairs and Governance. The Civil Guard also searches the Tax Agency, the Consortium of the Open Administration of Catalonia, the Catalan Finance Institute, the Telecommunications Centre of the Government of Catalonia, the General Directorate of Citizen Services, the Centre for Autonomous Studies, the Punt Cat Foundation, the company T-Systems, several private residences of technicians and senior government officials and an industrial warehouse in Bigues i Riells, among others. Nearly 10 million ballots and other electoral materials such as minutes establishing polling stations and vote tallying stations are also seized. As part of the operation, called ‘Operation Anubis,’ 14 people are arrested, most of them workers and senior officials of the government of Catalonia, such as Josep Maria Jové, secretary of the Vice-Presidency, and Josep Lluís Salvadó, secretary of the Treasury, as well as workers and managers of private companies. All of them are released after appearing before the investigating magnistrate, some up to two days after their arrest.