A judge has ordered the ex-treasurer of Spain's ruling conservative Popular Party (PP) be held without bail to keep him from skipping out of the country before his corruption trial starts.

Luis Barcenas is accused of squirreling away more than A$67 Million in secret Swiss bank accounts.  Prosecutors say at least some of that comes from illegal party donations or kickbacks.  But it was the transfer of some of that money to banks in Uruguay and the United States that alarmed prosecutors, and the judge.  Charges also include tax evasion and money laundering.

Prosecutors got onto Barcenas’ trail in March, when they came across a series of unusual transactions of more than A$840,000 each over a five-year period, to bank accounts held by Barcena's wife, Rosalia Iglesias.  She later admitted she didn’t have a job or regular income during that period.

The site of an allegedly corrupt government official rolling in ill-gotten millions while people lose their homes and hope in the extended financial crisis gutting Spain is bad news for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.  It also doesn’t help that Barcenas’ own hand-written notes, revealed earlier this year in El Pais newspaper, show thousands of dollars of expenditures on “Mariano’s Suits” and “Mariano’s Ties”.