Convicted Spanish bank executive found dead on hunting estate

Miguel Blesa, "one of the figureheads of Spain's financial crisis", has been found dead on a private hunting estate in Cordoba, Andalucia, says the Financial Times.

His body was discovered in a car park this morning, with a single gunshot wound to the chest. Police have ruled out murder and are "investigating the death as a suicide or accident".

The former Caja Madrid chairman was convicted of misappropriation of funds and was sentenced to six years in prison in February.

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His co-defendant Rodrigo Rata, one-time head of the International Monetary Fund, was sentenced to four and a half years. In total, 65 former staff were found guilty of hiding irregular and undeclared expenses, says the Washington Post.

Blesa and Rata were in the process of appealing their convictions and had been released on bail.

The case relates to €12m said to have been spent on "tarjetas black", or "black cards" - credit cards issued to executives by the bank and its successor, Bankia.

These cards were "were not part of normal pay packages and not declared to tax authorities", says the FT.

Caja Madrid, once Spain's "main regional savings bank", formed Bankia in a merger with six other banks in 2010, after an "ill-fated" flotation was bailed out by the Spanish government in 2012.

Rescuing the bank cost taxpayers €20bn (£18bn) and forced the government to "request financial aid from its EU partners".

Blesa had been chair of Caja Madrid between 1996 and its merger in 2010. Rata chaired Bankia between 2010 and its bailout in 2012.