On 22 March 2023, OLAF signed a cooperation agreement with the General Council of Notaries of Spain (CGN). The core feature of the agreement is that OLAF will be enabled to have access to the data of the CGN’s Centralized Body for the Prevention of Money Laundering (OCP).

The databases include data on beneficial owners of over 2.4 million commercial entities, nearly 164,000 non-commercial legal entities, such as associations, foundations or political parties, and more than 50,000 foreign entities. In addition, another database identifies nearly 25,000 persons who hold public responsibility by election or designation; nearly 31,000 related persons (family members and persons with professional or commercial ties) and over 4,000 companies in which persons with public responsibility hold shares (data from January 2021).

The Single Computerised Notarial Index stores and electronically classifies the content of the deeds and public acts authorised by the more than 2,800 Spanish notaries leading to a bulk of information on public documents.

Access to these data sources is considered extremely helpful for OLAF since perpetrators of EU fraud often hide their traces behind intricate schemes of companies and corporate entities. The CGN will set up a web platform from which OLAF’s information requests will be channelled.