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Comment by antr | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't hold Mondragon Corporation to a very high standard. Back in 2005-06 the company I worked in was intending to acquire Mondragon's wind turbine business (Ecotecnia). This was finally acquired by Alstom.

During the due diligence we saw the high level of political corruption, and terrorism financing Mondragon was involved in. Very distrubing. Once we saw this, we stopped looking at the acquisition.

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"Financing terrorism" might need a little context. Terrorist band ETA had an extortion net that they called "revolutionary tax". People that refused to pay were threatened and often beaten, kidnapped or murdered.

So a lot of companies paid. Even if they had no sympathy for the criminals.

But there were other companies that didn't need much "convincing". Was this one of that kind? I have no idea.

Edit: oh, these are the owners of Eroski. I remember they were in the news a long time ago exactly for that. I don't remember how the trial ended, but some guy was definitely charged.

Got anything I can look at regarding the financing of terrorism? Wouldn’t that be extremely illegal and would absolutely need to be reported to the government?

We did.

The Mondragon Group already had some history of financing terrorism(1), but we didn't know affiliates outside the Basque Country could be involved. Ecotecnia was based in Barcelona.

(1): http://www.interior.gob.es/noticias/detalle/-/journal_conten...

so one individual that works in the corp was detained, and suddenly the whole organization finances terrorism? very convincing

That link describes how a MCC worker was taken into custody, being charged with some degree of terrorism collaboration. He got out on bail 2 days after. [1]

Caja Laboral was not involved and they even fired that worker sortly after his detention (next day). [2]

I fail to see how that link proofs that the "Mondragon Group already had some historry of financing terrorism".

[1]https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20020531/51262755730/l...

[2]https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20020530/51262755722/c...

By that measure you shouldn't really consider any of the large Spanish companies, as all of them have extremely close ties to francoism. At least for Mondragon they are a drop in the other bucket. Still, I would be very skeptical about these "terrorism financing", since the data you acquired was very probably massaged by the Spanish authorities to look as bad as possible.

> any of the large Spanish companies, as all of them have extremely close ties to francoism

Come on dude, is this really necessary in HN? Don't you think you're stretching it a bit?

Sure, comparing the basque struggle to the francoist genocide was quite a stretch of my part. Sorry about that, mate!

That has nothing to do with anything I said.

Following the same reasoning, MCC "financing terrorism" is a far bigger stretch.

Terrorism? Edit: looking at your comment history I'm going to go with them supporting other left wing groups as your "terrorism"?

I don’t know exactly what OP is referring to, but the Basque country in Spain is a region with certain separatist political actors that advocate/push for the independence of the Basque Country.

In the past this included ETA which was a separatist terrorist group from the Basque region. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_(separatist_group)

ETA was most definitely a terrorist group, infamously known worldwide for their use of car bombs.

ETA was a terrorist group, but they publicly announced an end to violence in 2011. They began the process of deescalation after 9/11.

It should also be mentioned that the UN had said that the Spanish occupation of the Basque region violated human rights.

UN has never said that Spain is occupying the Basque Country.

Comment history? Left wing groups terrorists? Please enlighten us with your research.

You're an investor, it says so in your profile. Most of your comments have a fairly standard pro-markets anti-regulation view point. I was extrapolating that to be conservative but you could also be a liberal pro-markets type. So, my bad.

After doing some cursory googling, it looks like you were probably referring to the ETA. I would like to hear more about the terrorism and corruption, if you feel like going into it.

I have to admit, though, as an investor you and I see the world very very differently. If you don't mind me disagreeing with you I will try not to make any more assumptions.

You're mixing your views and opinions with facts.

All I can tell you is that our legal/compliance team did reach out to authorities.

As you can imagine, I won't entertain your ideology discussion when I'm refering to facts.

You're coming across in a axe-to-grind uninformed manner.

You make a claim like "Mondragon invests in terrorism" and you had better back that up.

What a weak and low effort post. This is not reddit. If you didn't find anything then that's were you should stop, otherwise you're only trying to entertain your biases and push them onto us.

I love how everyone here thinks they are above bias. It's precious. I'm just honest about mine.

They are the Spanish strike force! Largely irrelevant around here, until their fragile national unity is bruised and they all jump crying foul. Pretty funny when you see them for what they are.

Nobody said any of that, just told you to not accuse people of BS without proof.

I didn't say that they were left wing terrorist, but I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you were referring to their support of left wing political parties.

Again, I assumed that you are a conservative or libertarian. I apologise. I'm sorry that I just assumed you were a right winger.

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