Spain expelled two American agents who infiltrated its intelligence services

Officially, everything is going well… but there is room for doubt given the seriousness of the facts just revealed by the Spanish dailies El Confidencial and El Pais. And so during the inspection of the National Intelligence Center [CNI]The company, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, realized that two of its customers had access to information they were not supposed to know.

But the case took on another dimension when it turned out that these two agents were doing more than just consulting highly sensitive files… Indeed, the CIA investigation concluded that they had been recruited by “two American agents assigned to work at the United States Embassy” in Madrid. And they provided them with information in exchange for money.

When these embezzlements were confirmed, the two members of the National Central Intelligence Agency were arrested [l’un d’eux a cependant été remis en liberté, sous contrôle judicaire] The two American agents were “discreetly” expelled from Spain. The nature of the classified information they were interested in was not specified.

At the same time, the Spanish Defense Minister, Julissa Reynoso, summoned the US Ambassador to Madrid, to ask for clarifications. For his part, the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albarez, did the same to express his government’s “dissatisfaction.”

According to the newspaper “El Confidencial”, the last case of this kind dates back to 2007, when a CIA agent was accused of transmitting classified information to Russia, which earned him the title of “Kremlin spy.” Although the transfer of intelligence could not be formally proven at his trial, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for the “crime of treason”.

Since the press published this information about the infiltration attempt by the CIA, the Spanish government has acted as if nothing had happened. Thus, La Vanguardia reported, she was questioned about this issue during a visit to the El Golloso military base [Madrid]On December 7, Ms. Robles confirmed that relations with the United States had not been affected “in any way.” “When there are problems that can affect them, we talk about them and deal with them,” she said.

As a reminder, Spain and the United States are allies within NATO.

The fact remains that the basic facts of this case will arise, at one time or another, during the trial of the two CIA agents.

In any case, this case comes on top of other “scandals” that have rocked Spanish intelligence over the past five years. One of them, linked to the Pegasus spyware, forced Paz Esteban, who was his director at the time, to resign. She has since been charged.

Moreover, this is not the first time that US intelligence has announced this [la CIA, plus précisément] He is suspected of involvement in “questionable” acts in Spain. This was especially the case in February 2019, during a mysterious attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid.