Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security during the governments of the PP, remains on Wednesday detained by the National Police and, according to legal sources, will pass on Thursday available to Judge María Tardón, instructor of the National Court. The former popular high position from a plot of sale of stolen data, which has also captured the computer pirate José Luis Huertas, aka Alcasec; to the youtuber Álvaro Martín (arrested in Andorra); Already an alleged partner, Adrián Molina. The researchers have baptized the investigations as Operation Borraska.
The National Court maintains the case under summary secret. But the Court and the National Police have facilitated on Tuesday some new details of the plot. The investigation started in 2024. According to the agents, “after detecting a series of systematic and sustained cyber attacks in time against computer infrastructures of public agencies, companies in the energy sector, ports, transport systems, telephone networks and educational platforms.” The CNMC (National Commission of Markets and Competition) came to denounce that it suffered an illicit access to its computer services, “which caused the massive personal data on mobile phone lines.” And then, the inquiries began.
The thesis of the researchers is that the plot formed a “criminal organization” for the development of “a sophisticated and highly compartmentalized technological infrastructure”, which allowed them the theft of sensitive information. Subsequently, they put that data for sale in the black market; And then the benefits were bleached through “corporate structures.” According to sources close to the investigations, Francisco Martínez’s name breaks into that point. Sources of their environment explain that the creation of companies for Alcasec is attributed; But they add that he only limited himself to constituting those mercantiles, due to his work as a lawyer – both were known because the former Secretary of State for Security was his defending lawyer when the hacker He was a minor.
The complexity of the plot is overwhelming, according to the researchers: an end -to -end encrypted system was used, interposed identities, transactions with cryptoactive, anonymity tools … “From that progressive accumulation of data, the organization developed detailed profiles of people and institutions with the objective of maximizing their capacity for control, strategic exploitation and marketing of sensitive information,” adds sources of the National Court. “They offered personalized services to consult third parties, which accessed through an encrypted bot in a well -known social network,” the police continue: “The entire operation was housed in servers distributed in the cloud, which the group considered inaccessible for bodies and security forces.”
On the four detainees, the National Police rivets: “The group maintained long -careful personal and professional relationships, which were instrumentalized to expand their structure, socially legitimize their activity and project undercover private intelligence services, such as technological consulting.”
The General Information Police Station (CGI) of the Police has developed the investigation, under the direction of the Central Court of Instruction 3 of the National Court, headed by Judge María Tardón. In addition, the help of the National Cryptological Center, under the National Intelligence Center (CNI), and the authorities of Andorra and Switzerland, where the network operated. “Its cooperation has been essential for the monitoring of transnational economic flows,” the agents underline.
The researchers celebrate that the operation has allowed “dismantling the main servers” of the plot, “as well as recovering the databases hosted in the cloud.” “This action has allowed to safeguard sensitive information linked to millions of citizens, including personal data from educational systems, the civil registry, pet records, transport fertilizers, telephone records and billing platforms of electricity companies,” says the police.
Two old acquaintances
Martínez and Alcasec are two old acquaintances of the National Court, where both remain investigated in several causes. In the case of former Secretary of State for Security, his name appears in summaries linked to the Parapolical Network that operated inside during the stage of Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, who was right. On the one hand, the Criminal Chamber, the irregular operation used in 2013 inside to spy on the popular former Luis Bárcenas with the alleged objective of stealing documentation that would harm the PP. According to the investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón, he “assumed the coordination” of that plot and entrusted it to the then head of the National Police, Commissioner Eugenio Pino.
But, in addition, Martínez is currently charged in other parallel inquiries by Judge Santiago Pedraz, who investigates the Rajoy’s time. Pedraz admitted a complaint of Podemos for the maneuvers against the formation. In his complaint, the party assured that a group of police officers, under the leadership of the then Secretary of State for Security, “took care of prospective investigations and alien to any police interest” about the members of the political force, with the aim of filtering later false or misrepresented information to the press to discredit them. Martínez has rejected all these accusations and has defended his innocence.
For his part, Judge José Luis Calama, also an investigating judge of the National Court, prosecuted Alcasec in 2023 for the telecommunications network that connects the judicial bodies with other institutions of the State, with the aim of stealing information of more than half a million taxpayers, which later transferred two servers housed in Lithuania to put them on sale through a platform with payments in cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the magistrate ordered his arrest and entry into provisional prison, and, currently, he was waiting for the trial.
