It was the collapse of a Spanish bank – named Banco Popular – in 2017 that led Gareth Gore to first investigate the organization. By 2024, he was releasing Opus, the most recent widescale exposé into the machinations and influence of Opus Dei.7
“Like everyone else,” when he first went to Spain to report on what seemed like just another bank crisis, he said, he “missed the most important part of the story:”8 Following the bank’s collapse, most shareholders, he noted, had tried to recover their money. Most, but one.9
This shareholder, known as La Sindicatura, held approximately 10% of the bank, amounting to nearly EUR 2 billion.10 Instead of trying to recoup its costs, this shareholder was working to dissolve itself and disappear. Gore quickly discovered that, behind the Syndicate, were dozens of companies and foundations. The significant dividends being earned by these organizations were being distributed through “support companies” to a network of schools, residences, and retreat centers, all leading back to one organization: Opus Dei.
In fact, at the time of the bank’s collapse, Opus Dei had been in control of the bank’s board for around two decades.11 Over the years, a range of services had been made available to it, including currency movements, shell companies, and secret accounts in Panama and Switzerland.12 The bank had also set up a charitable foundation to which 5% of its profits had been dedicated each year, amounting to USD 150 million total. The bank’s chairman, a member of the Work (Opus Dei’s members and people familiar with it often refer to it simply as the Work), Luis-Valls Taberner, insisted the money was being used for “good causes”; most of the money had gone to projects run by Opus Dei.