Judge Santiago Pedraz will call a first sergeant of the Civil Guard to be investigated in a drug trafficking case in relation to some recordings made of him by a woman with whom he apparently had a romantic relationship and in which he boasted of irregular practices in his investigations such as the use of tracking beacons without authorization.
In an order, to which EFE has had access, the head of the Central Investigating Court 5 of the National Court adopts this decision after having taken a witness statement from the woman who made the recordings on Tuesday, for which reason he has not yet set a date for the appearance of the agent now charged.
Pedraz previously refused to grant this woman the status of protected witness in collusion with the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office, which considers that the reason for the alleged recordings was not justified, nor why the facts were not reported other than as a result of her friendship with the partner of one of those investigated, “which would give said person little credibility.”
The existence of these recordings was brought to the attention of the judge through one of the defense attorneys in the Águila Frozen case, a drug trafficking operation that emerged with decrypted data from the Encrochat platform and whose main investigator is Antonio Menéndez, alias Niño Skin, one of the leaders of the Ultra Sur.
In the recordings provided, this first sergeant of the Economic Crimes Group, SBM, as denounced by said defense in a letter to which EFE has had access, acknowledged that unauthorized beacons have been used in this investigation and that reports have been presented on surveillance that never took place.
The use of illegal beacons -added this defense- was detected by multiple investigators and became the subject of a complaint by my client that was dismissed because the author could not be determined.
In one of those recorded conversations, the witness asked her interlocutor: “And then, for example, if you see where you are going, do you have to say why you found it, with the beacon and everything?”
“Not because everything is false,” he replies, “that beacon is illegal. I am the most illegal of the illegal. In fact, we already stopped the one we are going to stop, he had taken two beacons from us. And with what he is, in the car, I tell them: put him in the car and take him to court yourselves (inaudible), put your hood on or do whatever you want. And scratch him (inaudible), scratch him a little to see why”.
And he continues recounting: “And the guy goes around saying that, well, that my boss is going after them, that he doesn't know why. For his sister, who doesn't know why. That it has something, that we are super illegal, that we put illegal beacons on it, that we invent follow-ups…Things that are true. That we have messed it up, come on, we have messed it up!”
“We have done everything to them! But it is that if not to these people how do you catch them. I cannot go behind. It is that I cannot always go … The other day my colleague told me that we are three steps behind …”, he came to reveal.