On one side of the CNI's situation room, known as the cathedral of intelligence, hang photographs of the situations that have been successfully managed within these hermetic walls in recent decades: the release of the Basque tuna fisherman Alakrana in 2009, the release of the Spanish aid workers of Médecins sans Frontières kidnapped in Kenya in 2011 or the arrival in Spain of journalist Javier Espinosa after 194 days held by the Islamic State.
The doors of this room - where all the alarms go off when there is a major crisis - were opened yesterday for the first time to the media with the aim of conveying the work that the workers of the center The director, Esperanza Casteleiro, announced that she has reorganized the structure of the CNI, like other intelligence services of allied countries. That is why it has created "mission centers", specific units adapted to the objectives that the central government - through the intelligence directive - has entrusted to it.
At a time when the geopolitical landscape is marked by the war in Ukraine, the shift of the center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the destabilization of the Sahel, these priorities marked by the Moncloa on which the work of the CNI pivots there are four Irregular immigration, focused on networks that traffic in people; counter-terrorism, to avoid attacks in Spain; counterintelligence, to try to identify hostile agents in national territory, and cyber security, the field in which future conflicts will be settled.
For this reason, the operational and technical staff dedicated to obtaining information and the expert staff in advanced analysis have been increased. Of the 3,000 people who make up the CNI, 76% are civilian personnel, 18% belong to the armed forces and 5% are part of the forces and security forces of the State. "The main obligation is to know, with the maximum degree of accuracy possible, the threats that must be combated in order to reduce their vulnerability", detailed Casteleiro. The director of intelligence revealed that, for example, the center has collaborators in immigrant concentration areas near Ceuta and Melilla - such as Mount Gurugú - to anticipate possible jumps over the fences of the cities borders He described the current collaboration with Morocco as "intense".
The director of the CNI, who has been in office since the Pegasus espionage crisis ousted her predecessor, Paz Estaban, was yesterday escorted by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who criticized the "smear campaigns" against the CNI of people who "violated the legality", in a clear allusion to the pro-independence leaders who denounced that they had been victims of the attack with the spy program that allows access to all the information on the mobile phone. The head of Defense, since the espionage scandal came to light, has always thought that the secrecy imposed by the CNI's activities has prevented the center from defending itself on equal terms. And yesterday he verbalized it again: "Disinformation and ignorance must be avoided."
