The discovery that two National Intelligence Center (CNI) agents were bribed for passing classified information to the United States has created an unprecedented situation between Madrid and Washington. Defense Secretary Margarita Robles, on whom the CNI depends, summoned the US ambassador to Madrid, Julissa Reynoso, to her office after the summer to seek explanations for what was considered a hostile and unusual action between two allied countries. According to government sources, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares also called the Biden administration representative in Madrid and expressed the executive branch’s discomfort. At least two American agents stationed at the US Embassy in Madrid and directly involved in recruiting CNI spies were discreetly expelled from Spain.
The operation, which culminated two months ago with the arrest of two Spanish secret service agents, began before the summer, when a CNI security check found that they had access to classified information that was neither necessary nor necessary for their work knowledge they were authorized. The internal investigation confirmed that at least one of the agents, a middle cadre in the Intelligence Center, had been recruited by American spies to obtain classified information on demand in exchange for a large sum of money. According to sources close to the CNI, it is an area manager, one of the departments belonging to the intelligence department, while the other detainee is his assistant.
When the CNI completed its investigation, the Director of the Secret Service, Esperanza Casteleiro, reported the matter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court, which in turn referred the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court of Madrid. The latter was responsible for studying the matter and, finally, the corresponding complaint to be presented to the responsible judge of the investigative court in the Plaza de Castilla.
At that moment, the sources consulted explain, the government decided to communicate to the United States the facts of which it had become aware and to convey its protest. This was a very serious matter, as the recruitment of secret agents of the host country to betray one’s own country is considered an openly hostile action, practiced against hostile or opposing governments, but never against friends and allies. Spanish intelligence sources do not fully understand what happened. “What will Americans have to pay for if we give them everything they ask for?” they ask. The cooperation and exchange of information are permanent, insist the same sources, and the cases in which Spain refuses to share information of interest to Washington “are between one and none.”
The sources consulted explain that when Ambassador Reynoso was summoned by Minister Robles, she stated categorically that she knew nothing of the events and that the US agents who captured the Spanish spies were working independently of the head of the embassy on a program, which was launched before the arrival of current President Joe Biden in the White House and has been maintained until now for unknown reasons. Reynoso, the same sources add, apologized for the incident, which had put the embassy itself in an embarrassing situation, and promised maximum cooperation in the ongoing investigation.
The Defense and State Departments agreed to the expulsion of at least two American spies – some sources claim there were more – who were involved in recruiting and purchasing CNI agents, done discreetly as Washington rushed to to remove them. For its part, the Investigative Court No. 22 of Madrid, which was responsible for the case by distribution, declared the proceedings secret and ordered the arrest of the two reported spies and the search of their homes. Both entered the modular area of the Estremera prison (Madrid), which is reserved for security forces and prison officials serving a sentence or preventive detention and who are isolated from the rest of the inmates. However, the assistant was released on charges last month while his boss remains in prison.
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According to CNI sources, the latter’s arrest caused a great shock among his colleagues as he is a very experienced agent and is well known in the center. Both he and his subordinate are accused of a crime of disclosing secrets and could be sentenced to between six and twelve years in prison under Article 584 of the Penal Code, which punishes “a Spaniard who, with the intention of favoring…” to a foreign person Power, association or international organization to obtain, falsify, deactivate or disclose information classified as confidential or secret that could be harmful to national security or defense.”
It is not the first time that the Spanish secret service has denounced one of its agents for treason. In 2007, the CNI denounced former spy Roberto Flórez, who worked for the center between 1992 and 2004, after confidential documents were found in a building and two apartments he owned in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife. A letter addressed to Russian intelligence offering to work for him in exchange for an initial payment of $200,000 was also confiscated. Although it could not be proven that the transfer of secret documents had been completed, in 2010 the Madrid Provincial Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison, which the Supreme Court later reduced to nine years.
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