Miguel Blesa, the former chief of Caja Madrid, was found dead in the garage of his home on Wednesday.
The 69-year-old banker was found on the floor in his 1,600-hectare Andalusian home Wednesday morning after shooting himself in the chest.
An employee of the estate called the emergency services at 7:50am. At 8:40am he was confirmed dead by medics.
The autopsy has revealed that Blesa committed suicide. Officials said there was just one bullet wound in the left side of the chest, with no signs of struggle, and the location of the wound suggests a deliberate shot.
Blesa had previously been involved in a series of high-profile scandals and was facing a six-year prison sentence over suppling Caja Madrid board members with secret credit cards for luxury expenses.
He was head of the company from 1996 to 2009, and already spent 15 days in prison in 2013 over an acquisition of the City National Bank of Florida. He was also involved in various other trials over paying out irregular bonuses, and had his reputation suffer by extreme spending with “black” credit cards during the economic crisis. Those involved in that case spent all together 12.5 million euros between 2003 and 2012 on tax-free personal expenses.
At the height of his success, Blesa was on an annual salary of over two billion euros during the real estate boom, and was head of Spain’s fourth-largest lender. But recently, things had changed for Blesa; and was now rejected by those he worked with, and often reviled by the Spanish society; struggling to not be recognised and insulted in public places like shops and restaurants.
His wife has now travelled to Andalucía to plan his funeral, which will be held in his home town: Linares, in the province of Jaén.