During the 2010s, he worked closely with figures from Spain’s conservative Partido Popular (PP), using digital tools to shape public perception and artificially boost the online profiles of party politicians.
De Pedro rose to national prominence as a central figure in Operación Púnica, a sweeping 2014 corruption investigation into influence-peddling and the misuse of public funds. Under the scheme, government contracts were allegedly awarded in exchange for kickbacks, which were then funneled into the illegal financing of PP campaigns—effectively doubling the party’s spending during the 2011 regional elections.
De Pedro’s role centered on managing and amplifying the digital presence of PP officials. Beyond conventional search engine optimization work, he allegedly deployed a network of approximately 45,000 fake Twitter accounts to simulate grassroots enthusiasm, attack political opponents, and manipulate algorithms.
While some of his work was tied to electoral campaigns, a significant portion focused on non-electoral image enhancement, effectively publicly funded reputation management that blurred the line between institutional communication and partisan promotion.
Although De Pedro was arrested and briefly jailed for irregularities in public procurement, Spanish prosecutors struggled to charge him for the disinformation-related aspects of his work, largely due to the lack of clear legal frameworks governing digital influence operations.
