On March 27, the deputy of EH Bildu Jon Iñarritu reproached the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, that "this (in reference to the Mediator case and the Barracks case) is not that there is a black sheep in the Civil Guard , this is that the stew has burned”. This week, when the storm over the Armed Institute seemed to have subsided – after its new director declared that she will have an implacable hand against corruption – another chickpea seems charred: the one who was the head of the elite team against drug trafficking for four years in the Strait, Lieutenant Colonel David Oliva Moreno. Although his case has special singularities.
Oliva, the son of a civil guard, was in charge of the Civil Guard's Organism for the Coordination of Operations against Drug Trafficking (OCON), created by the current head of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, before the rise of traffickers in Campo de Gibraltar – until it was dismantled, suddenly, after last summer. There, according to all the police sources consulted, he moved in criminal environments as required by his position. And there is the fine line that separates "personal relationships" and "links to achieve the best sources" to deal blows to drug trafficking. The case originated at a party he attended, with the presence of drug traffickers.
The lieutenant colonel is not being investigated by the National Court for favoring drug traffickers, who, according to sources close to him, "have it in for him." According to judicial sources, after attending that party Oliva began to fear that he could be investigated or that a trafficker would charge him. Completely unfounded suspicions because, according to the same sources, the lieutenant colonel, who was awarded the National Drug Plan merit medal by Minister Marlaska, has never been investigated for his relationship with criminals. But he knew that internal affairs (SAI) is carrying out an operation against alleged civil guards who have gone over to drug trafficking. And he crossed the line.
Oliva, according to the investigations, allegedly pressured an internal affairs lieutenant to inform him of what was against him. In exchange, the lieutenant colonel would have offered the other agent a job in the elite unit that he directed from Andalusia, the land of origin of the alleged informer, so he had the incentive to be closer to his people. In addition, the OCON uniforms have been during the four years that it was operational charging attractive supplements in diets for the 24/7 availability that the unit required.
Those responsible for internal affairs suspected that someone from within could be providing information to third parties, so they asked the National Court to tap the colonel's telephone, also investigated in the case. And they discovered the cake. An exchange of messages with Lieutenant Colonel Oliva that has led them to the accusation.
In that exchange of messages on WhatsApp, the alleged pressures on the internal affairs agent would be evidenced to confirm – or deny – that he was under magnifying glass. And also how the aforementioned agent gave in to provide confidential information with the promise of a better-paid destination.
Both uniformed men have denied everything before the instructor Alejandro Abascal, who released them with the obligation to appear once a month before the court. According to sources present at the interrogation, they responded to everything the magistrate asked them for two and a half hours. They also provided all their electronic devices to the agents who searched their homes last Tuesday.
The case, which could well be the script for a series based on the fine line that separates agents from drug traffickers, is "much less cinematographic than it seems," says a source familiar with the investigations, who senses that this A separate piece of the case will pass from the National Court to the Cádiz courts.
Precisely from Cádiz there are numerous associations of civil guards that this week have mobilized on social networks so that this case does not cloud the work that the OCON has carried out these years, within the Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar, which in the 2022 came to arrest and investigate 5,827 people for drug trafficking and to seize 272.9 tons of drugs on the Andalusian coast.
