The methods used by the Madrid Civil Guard’s economic crime team resulted in the indictment of six of its members, accused of illegally placing tracking devices on a target as part of a trafficking investigation of drugs. Due to these events, the agents risk receiving a sanction that they never had for their most high-profile action: entering the worst moment in recent Spanish history with two falsified reports in which they accused the central government from spreading Covid-19. , enable the 2020 feminist march.
A drug trafficking investigator found two tags in his car and motorbike before being charged in the National Court. He went to court with them and an investigation by the National Police showed that behind their purchase and use were six civil guards from the team that manipulated the reports in the so-called 8M case . On September 28, 2023, Judge Santiago Pedraz secretly ordered National Police agents assigned to the National Court to investigate the origin of the beacons. Operation Bali 23 has begun.
A website offers devices that can be placed on valuable objects to know where they are at any time. To do this, you must place a small box and wait for it to send movement signals to the mobile phone on which the brand’s application has been downloaded. In exchange, you have to pay a subscription. The device was located on a Kawasaki Ninja by its owner, but the national police were unable to advance their investigations. They needed the collaboration of the French company that sells the device and never received a response.
The owner of the Kawasaki also owns an Audi A3. Hidden in the car’s undercarriage was a second tracking device. But this one was different. It was a tag in which a SIM card is inserted, the same as those found in cell phones, and which to work requires inserting a second one with a different number into a cell phone.
In a short time, the National Police identified the individual who had purchased the cards from two citizens of Arab origin who ran separate stores in Colmenar Viejo (Madrid). It was a 55-year-old man from Madrid, named Jesús, with no criminal record. The arrival of the buyer could wait.
The agents then began investigating the position of the cards across days and scenarios. Through a massive exchange of data, they found a mobile phone that was always near one of the two SIM cards, probably the one used to check the status of the beacon from another phone. It belonged to a woman who, like the alleged buyer of the cards, did not present a suspicious profile.
However, years before, a phone associated with this phone line was stolen. The person who reported the terminal theft to the police station was not the woman but her husband. It was the JAGC, a civil guard stationed at the Madrid command. The trace of the cell phone used by the Civil Guard appeared in the same areas where the beacon cards were purchased and activated in the name of this Jesus.
From this discovery everything accelerated. The two beacon cards and the Civil Guard telephone number are often placed, next to another cell phone, belonging to the RCDA, which turns out to be a first corporal of the Civil Guard, according to the police report provided to National Court and to which elDiario.es had access. On April 4, 2023, the number of the first guard (in the name of his wife) contacted the two surveyed beacons, one of them located on the Costa del Sol. He then calls and chats for eight minutes on another cell phone that belongs to him. to a new protagonist, JAGP, also civil guard of Tres Cantos.
The cell phone of the wife of the first civil guard reveals new discoveries. Call Sergio B, the brigadier accused after confessing to illegal methods in the recording that gave rise to this investigation. Also LAVR, also a member of the armed institute. And another number which is repeated but which belongs to a woman outside the Civil Guard. This woman has several telephone lines in her name. She is the wife of ECS, an agent of the Civil Guard.
After tracking a large number of interconnected phones, the national police presented the report of Operation Bali 23 to the judge. The RCDA added 25 posts as well as the beacon cards. JAGC, the first civil guard discovered, approached SIM cards 28 times. Its partner, JAGP, holds the record, 29 positions. The latest to locate, ECS, adds eight. And the first accused, Brigadier Sergio, seven in total.
Statement as accused
The judge of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, recused himself in favor of a local court due to the type of crime and the president of the Court of Instruction number 54 of Madrid, Marta Gutiérrez del Olmo, summoned the six agents to testify. as being investigated for crimes against privacy on November 25, as exclusively revealed by elDiario.es this Sunday.
The positioning of the beacons and the goalkeepers’ cell phones preferably places them in three scenarios: Colmenar Viejo, where the goalkeeper who allegedly purchased them lives, the surroundings of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium and two locations linked to the plaintiff who found them in his vehicles. , that of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid and the Costa del Sol, where he would have traveled and would have been followed by the civil guards without the knowledge of the judge.
Where the maps linked to the beacons are located, we also note the presence of the civil guards’ cell phones. This happens on May 10, 2023. Investigators found the ECS and RCDE guards residing in Estepona. Two other agents, JAGC and JAPJ, had remained the previous July 3 in Marbella, a town very close to San Pedro de Alcántara, where they were. located the tracking device at that time.
But the investigation was missing the figure of Jesus, the man whose identity had been used to buy the cards. The Madrid native was questioned by the national police on March 12 of this year. His phone company doesn’t match the one listed on the beacon cards, nor does the cell phone he uses. He tells investigators that he may have spent five years without setting foot in Colmenar Viejo, where the stands where the beacon cards in his name were acquired are located. And he says something else: he lost or had his ID card stolen three times and he reported it. The National Police verified that this was true by consulting its databases.
