The UCO, in the web of politics | Spain

The Central Operating Unit (UCO), the flagship of the Civil Guard in the fight against organized crime and corruption, was created in the late 1980s by the socialist government of Felipe González. It started with a small number of agents that began to be known when resolving media cases such as the crime of Alcàsser’s girls or the kidnapping of the Olot pharmacist. Since then, many things have changed in this unit. Today there are more than 700 troops and their acronym are repeated again and again in press holders. Of course, not only to solve events such as Diana Quer’s murdersthe boy Gabriel or the two Barbate agentsbut above all for participating in investigations with an important political draft.

UCO agents are currently involved in The investigations of Begoña Gomez casein which the wife of the president of the Government is charged; he Koldo case, that has against the ropes To the former socialist minister José Luis Ábalos; the cause in which it is investigated The supposed irregular hiring of Pedro Sánchez’s brother in the Diputación de Badajoz and the one in the focus To the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortizamong others. In all of them, except for the investigation into Ábalos, on a direct commission of the judges who instruct them: Juan Carlos Peinado in the case of Sánchez’s wife; Beatriz Biedma in that of the brother, and Ángel Hurtado in the investigations about the attorney general. Gone are other sounded investigations, such as cases Punic, Lezo, Eraial either Taula who splashed well -known leaders of the PP; the preoria operation, which affected the ancient convergence; or that of The EREthat shook the PSOE in Andalusia.

However, in recent days the field of playing news about UCO investigations is different. Since The confidential will bring to light the recording in which The socialist militant Leire Díez and The businessman Javier Pérez Dolset They try to convince a investigated by the Civil Guard to provide them with compromising information against one of their controls, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, head of the Department of Economic and Anti -Corruption Research in charge of the four cases that affect the Government. Since then, the name of the unit has fallen into a political web in which some present it as a victim of a conspiracy and others point to some of its members in alleged maneuvers against the government.

Some media have echoed accusations from anonymous sources that point to some of their agents as those responsible for allegedly filtering WhatsApp messages exchanged between Sánchez and Ábalos; to start investigations for political interests, or to spread rumors about An uninforced report that supposedly appears the secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. The patrimonial report on Ábalos also had resonance that the UCO sent to the Supreme Court and in which a value much higher than the real to a property acquired in Colombia by the former minister in 2003 was attributed. The error gave rise to the former socialist leader to pay the idea that he was the victim of an alleged political hunt. The next day, the person in charge of the investigation sent a trade to the magistrate Leopoldo Puente in which he admitted to having confused the symbol of the dollar with that of the Colombian peso.

The noise has been further expanded by recently knowing part of the messages exchanged in 2021 with a confidant by a former unit officer who now works for the Madrid Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. In them, Captain Juan Vicente Bonilla encouraged his interlocutor to get compromising information about the socialists. When in January he presented his allegations in Congress to prevent parliamentary immunity from being withdrawn (something that finally happened), Ábalos cited precisely the name of this former UCO officer in his allegations and showed his conviction that an operation had been launched Ex Professor To inculp.

All this noise has created enormous discomfort not only in the UCO, but in the rest of the Civil Guard. « Our sin is to do our job, » says an agent of the armed institute angrily when asked about what is happening. « A conversation of an agent with a confidant cannot emphasize an entire unit, » he insists. And he adds: « That nobody looks for dark conspiracies in our investigations, because there are no. » Several uniformed men emphasize that attacks on their work are not new. « It is not the first time that alleged criminals accuse all kinds of crimes to UCO agents to invalidate the investigation, » says one. And he adds that, therefore, their agents already have « callus » and do not affect them.

Nor the alleged political pressures. In the UCO there are those who consider as such the press conference that, in May 2017, gave the then president for the PP of the Community of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes, in which he labeled a document of the Civil Guard in which he was involved in the Punic case of « Value trials without legal basis. » An old command of the unit recalls another episode, which had to live with the popular Juan Ignacio Zoido when he was an interior minister. « One day he called to congratulate us for a report on the ERE and, the following week, he did it again but to describe as ‘little rigorous’ the one we had delivered in the Punic case which affected members of his party, ”he details.

For some agents, criticisms of recent days, but also other older ones, occur because they seem to forget a fundamental element on the functioning of security forces: « Agents do what judges order or authorize them; they are not free. »

Tensions with Marlaska

No one in the Government or the Ministry of Interior has openly verbalized any suspicion about unity, although vice president María Jesús Montero, not expressly mentioning it, did say that, in the case of the dissemination of messages between Sánchez and Ábalos, you had to look towards who was responsible for its custody in an implicit reference to its agents. In private, however, some positions from the department of Fernando Grande-Marlaska have begun to talk about a group of agents in the unit (some media have begun to refer to them as the “Patriotic UCO” reminiscent of the group of police officers who during the government of Mariano Rajoy spyed the PP rivals and whose members must sit on the bench in 2026) that would seek to harm the government of Sánchez. The use of this expression causes enormous discomfort in the armed institute.

In the middle of the storm, the general director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, held a meeting in his office with Lieutenant Colonel Balas and the UCO head, Colonel Rafael Yuste, to show them his support. However, in the Civil Guard some lament from what warm defense of Grande-Marlaska describes. The minister spoke about what happened at the press conference of the last Council of Ministers, and said he has « the maximum consideration » towards the UCO and « his professionalism » and stressed that he always acts « under the guidelines of the judicial authorities and the prosecutor. » Insufficient words for some agents.

These same sources believe that this alleged warmth of the head of Interior is the reflection of the stormy relationship he has maintained since he assumed the portfolio in the summer of 2018 with the Civil Guard, the body that, 10 years before, dismantled the ETA command that had orders to attempt against him when he was judge of the National Court. As two collaborators of the minister consulted have agreed to qualify him, the « original sin » was his decision as soon as he occupied the portfolio to appoint A National Police CommissionerJosé Antonio Rodríguez, to replace Colonel Juan Hernández Mosquera as director of the Cabinet of Studies and Coordination, a position that makes the one that occupies him in the real number three Operation of the Ministry and that, until that moment, had always held a high command of the Armed Institute.

This step was interpreted as an affront in the Civil Guard and triggered a series of events that still brose in the Armed Institute. In August 2018, He dismissed Colonel Manuel Sánchez Corbí, who was then head of the UCOafter the filtration to the press of an internal email in which he criticized the lack of reserved funds. AND In May 2020, Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos ceased fulminantlythat he was the highest head of the Civil Guard in Madrid, after meeting for the press that the Armed Institute investigated the director of the Center for Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón. In the hard core of the minister it is considered that these decisions – that of Colonel Pérez de los Cobos was then annulled by the Supreme Court – are still very present in certain instances of the Armed Institute.

A deputy of the Interior Commission of the Congress, who asks to maintain anonymity, says that, although Grande-Marlaska has never heard him say a bad word about the Civil Guard, his advisors have told him in informal conversations his impression that « there was a problem » with the armed institute. Sanchez Corbí left the UCO Headquarters in 2018 And four years ago he left the Civil Guard and signed for the company Acciona. « It is true that it retains good friends in unity, but its influence on it is void, » says a former subordinate of the command. Pérez de los Cobos went to the reserve last December After getting several judicial victories about Grande-Marlaska.

In parallel, the professional associations of the Civil Guard have come out in block in support of the UCO. Ernesto Vilariño, general secretary of Jucil (the majority among the agents and strongly facing the Government), says: « Unity companions have always demonstrated their independence, rigor and commitment to society, in addition to their determination to uncover cases of corruption, regardless of government color (…). Any criticism is simply noise. » In the same vein, Juan Fernández, of the AUGC, highlights: « The UCO has always been criticized and praised in equal parts. And, like there are police and thieves, there are also good and bad, honest and corrupt people. Those who criticize the UCO already know what side they are. »

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the UCO, located in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Madrid, the word that is most repeated these days is « tranquility. » The order is to « abstract from the noise and continue working, » says an agent. « If someone wants to denounce alleged irregularities in the action of the unit, who goes to a court to denounce it, » says a head of the Armed Institute, who interprets the news known in recent days as « a gross attempt to intimidate them. »

When asked why they have not come to defend themselves against accusations, the answer is simple: « That is politicians. The Civil Guard prefers to speak through the reports we present to the judges. » An agent ironized that, after all what was published in recent days, no one can say what the former secretary general of the PP of Madrid, Francisco Granados, snapped the Civil Guard that alerted him that this unit was investigating him for the Punic case: « What the hell is that of the UCO? »