The methods of the Economic Crimes Team of the Civil Guard in Madrid have ended up leading to the indictment of six of its members, accused of illegally placing tracking devices on a target in a drug trafficking investigation. Due to these events, the agents risk receiving a punishment that they never had for their most high-profile action: breaking into the worst moment in the recent history of Spain with two falsified reports in which they accused the central government of spreading Covid-19, allow the feminist march of 2020.
An investigator for drug trafficking found two beacons in his car and his motorcycle before being charged in the National Court. He went to court with them and an investigation by the National Police has shown that behind their purchase and use are six civil guards from the Team that manipulated the reports in what is known as the 8M case. On September 28, 2023, Judge Santiago Pedraz secretly ordered the national police officers assigned to the National Court to investigate the origin of the beacons. Operation Bali 23 began.
A website offers devices that can be placed on valuable objects to know where they are at all times. To do this, you have to place a small box and wait for it to send movement signals to the mobile phone where 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 could not 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 has an Audi A3. Hidden in the undercarriage of the car was a second tracking device. But this one was different. It was a beacon that has a SIM card inserted, the same as those found in mobile phones, and that to work requires a second one with a different number to be inserted 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 run separate shops in Colmenar Viejo (Madrid). He was a 55-year-old man from Madrid, named Jesús, with no criminal record. The buyer’s lead could wait.
The agents then began to investigate the position of the cards on different days and scenarios. Through a massive exchange of data they found a mobile phone that was always close to one of the two SIM cards, probably the one that was used to control 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 telephone associated with that telephone line had been stolen. The person who reported the theft of the terminal to the police station was not the woman but her husband. It was JAGC, a civil guard stationed at the Madrid Command. The trace of the mobile phone used by the civil guard appeared in the same areas where the beacon cards were purchased and activated in the name of this Jesús.
From this discovery everything accelerated. The two beacon cards and the civil guard’s telephone number are often placed, next to another mobile phone, belonging to RCDA, which turns out to be a first corporal of the Civil Guard, according to the police report provided to the 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) contacts the two investigated beacons, one of them located on the Costa del Sol. He then calls and talks for eight minutes with another mobile phone that belongs to a new protagonist, JAGP, also a civil guard from Tres Cantos.
The mobile phone of the wife of the first civil guard is revealing new discoveries. Call Sergio B, the brigadier accused after confessing illegal methods in the recording that gave rise to this investigation. Also LAVR, also a member of the armed institute. And one more number that is repeated but that belongs to a woman outside the Civil Guard. That woman has several phone lines in her name. She is the wife of ECS, an agent of the Civil Guard.
After tracking a large number of interrelated telephones, the National Police presented the judge with the report of Operation Bali 23. RCDA adds 25 positions along with the beacon cards. JAGC, the first civil guard discovered, is close to the SIM cards on 28 occasions. His partner, JAGP, has the record, 29 positions. The last one to locate, ECS, adds eight. And the first accused, Brigadier Sergio, a total of seven.
Declaration as accused
The judge of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, has recused himself in favor of a local court due to the type of crime and the head of the Investigative Court number 54 of Madrid, Marta Gutiérrez del Olmo, has summoned the six agents to testify. as being investigated for a crime against privacy on November 25, as elDiario.es revealed exclusively this Sunday.
The positioning of the beacons and the guards’ mobile phones preferably places them in three scenarios: Colmenar Viejo, where the guard who allegedly bought them lives, the vicinity of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium and two places related to the complainant 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 was followed by the civil guards without the judge’s knowledge.
Where the cards linked to the beacons are, there is also the presence of the civil guards’ cell phones. It occurs on May 10, 2023. Investigators have found the ECS and RCDE guards staying in Estepona. Two other agents, JAGC and JAPJ, stayed in Marbella on the previous July 3, a town very close to San Pedro de Alcántara, where they were located. the tracking device at that time.
But the investigation lacked the figure of Jesus, the man whose identity was used to buy the cards. The Madrid resident is interrogated by the national police on March 12 of this year. His telephone company does not match the one on the beacon cards, nor does the mobile phone he uses. He tells investigators that he may have gone five years without setting foot in Colmenar Viejo, where the booths where the beacon cards were acquired in his name are located. And he says something else: he has lost or had his ID stolen three times and that he reported it. The National Police verified that it was true by consulting their databases.
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