So Mr Camacho is being held without bail in a Spanish prison, where he won't be needing his sunglasses for a while.

Camacho's firm, Gescartera, purported to be a successful stockbroking operation, but during a routine inspection by the National Stock Market Commission in June bank certificates purporting to show that 100m euros was at Banco Santander Central Hispano and La Caixa, Spain's largest savings bank were found to be false.

Gescartera's licence was suspended and Mr Camacho was detained pending an investigation, but it took weeks for investigators to gain access to Gescartera's records, and by then the hard disks of the company's computers had been erased.

The growing scandal has forced the resignation of financial secretary of state Enrique Gimenez-Reyna, whose sister was managing director of Gescartera. Mr Camacho's lawyers have claimed that Mr Gimenez-Reyna worked as a Gescartera consultant before taking up his public post.

Those who entrusted their money to Gescartera, the national police corps, the Trust for Orphans of the Civil Guard, the Spanish Missionary Society, several Roman Catholic religious orders, the Archbishop of Valladolid, and hundreds of civil servants. Officials of some of the organisations which placed money with Gescartera are accused of receiving bribes from Mr Camacho, and some have resigned.

The scandal has forced the Government to bow to pressure from opposition parties and the public and order an inquiry. "The government's silence over this scandal is quite unintelligible, especially when public authorities have had business dealings with Gescartera," said Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, leader of the Socialist opposition.

So there is a tasty political scandal, but where is the money? Investigators say that Gescartera used to place large buy and sell orders for one stock with different brokers on the same day, giving the impression that Gescartera was conducting a lot of business, although it only had to settle the difference between the buy and sell orders. Meanwhile, funds deposited by investors were being moved abroad. The funds were transferred to shell companies in Jersey, and then on to Switzerland. "The problem is that we are still three steps behind the money," the investigator said this week.

Investors in Gescartera say that Mr Camacho used to boast of his connections with HSBC, the London-based bank, and his companies in Jersey. HSBC in Madrid acknowledges that Mr Camacho was a client until 1999, after which the bank says it cut off the financier's credit lines. HSBC denies any irregularity in its dealings with Gescartera or Mr Camacho.