Two vehicles full of agents from the National Police’s Economic and Financial Crime Unit (UDEF) burst into the Granada municipal police headquarters on February 18th. Once they got inside, they focused on the offices of the superintendent and his closest aides. Five months later, the UDEF went back and searched again, this time at the police station and the Human Resources Department of City Hall. It was known that they were looking into problems with some local police recruitment tests, but the case’s confidentiality kept the probe from being fully publicised. The numbers that have come out since the order to keep things secret has been released are really interesting: There are 43 people being looked into for fraud relating to 79 jobs that were offered in four recruiting tests in Granada and two other places. The judge’s order also lists up to ten additional crimes. The same court judgement also says that “the existence of new suspects cannot be ruled out” because there is currently ongoing investigation into “the existence of another group within the Local Police force that also rigs the competitive examinations.”
The inquiry by the courts puts the former head of the Local Police and his second-in-command at the top of the gang. A group of trusted officers is also involved, and in the end, 13 local police officers from the capital, some of them are also leaders of the Independent Union of the Local Police of Granada (SIPLG). The judge says that these officials, who she calls a “criminal group,” were involved in the fraud or systematic manipulation of the selection processes. The plan’s goal was to make sure that the people they chose (mostly local police officers, but also children and other close family members) passed the competitive exams. To achieve this, she goes on, they created the examination boards with members of the group and gave the parents and/or applicants the questions for the theoretical and practical tests. Many of the people who passed were children or relatives of the cops who were part of the plan, so it’s vital to know that.
The plan also made sure that the “hiring of the psychologist who would administer the second exercise [psychometric tests and interview] following the instructions of the ringleaders” was done in case they still failed even after knowing the questions. So, the plan perfectly protected the whole operation. The probe also includes the 13 local cops, the hired psychologist, the director general of recruitment, and the head of the department at the Granada City Council. For now, the investigation in the city is just looking into two competitive exams: one from 2019 that had 40 open posts and another from 2022 that had 32 open positions.
But the court is also looking at two other personnel selection processes in Albolote (population 19,554), where four local police jobs need to be filled, and Algarinejo (population 2,331), where three need to be filled. This lets one local police officer from Loja and one from Almuñécar look into more people, as well as two more members of the courts, without saying why they were involved. This is because tiny town courts always have to call on cops from other towns.
In summary, the court ruling lists 20 people who will be on the examining team. They are all accused of crimes such as misconduct, influence peddling, revealing secrets and privileged information, fraud in contracting, and being a member of a criminal organisation. The judge also designates 23 candidates as suspects in the order on the other side of the examining board. For these candidates, the offence they are accused of is misconduct or crimes against public administration.
The superintendent who was being looked at and was thought to be the leader of the scheme had to resign the day after the UDEF’s first raid. The municipal council, which is now acting as a private prosecutor in the case, had some time to make the decision, but events forced them to do so. Today, after the court ruling was announced, the mood has changed, although not in a big way. The mayor of the city, Marifrán Carazo, who is a member of the People’s Party, has said that the city council will “fully cooperate” with the court. The mayor said she would do whatever the judge told her to do when asked if she would take action against the cops being looked into.
Susana Álvarez Civantos, magistrate of the Granada Court of Instruction Number 4, made an order that said the next step would be for the police to question the 43 people who are being looked into. The judge is also giving the opposition members who are affected the chance to testify and tell their side of the story.
The Granada Local Police are not only under investigation for fraud in the competitive exams. Several officers are being looked into for accessing the VioGen system without a good reason. They are said to have done this to provide information about a victim to a sub-inspector in the force who is accused of abusing his ex-partner.
Author: Derek Appleton
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