The National Intelligence Centre (Spanish: Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, CNI) is the Spanish official intelligence agency, acting as both its foreign and domestic intelligence agency. Its headquarters are located next to the A-6 motorway near Madrid. The CNI is the successor of the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa, the Higher Centre for Defence Intelligence. Its main target areas are North Africa and South America and it operates in more than 80 countries. CNI's official budget for 2023 is approximately €337.1 million (the CNI can get further resources from the classified funds).[2]
The centre's essential goal is to provide the Spanish Government all the necessary information to prevent and avoid any risk or menace that affects the independence or integrity of Spain, its national interests, institutions and rule of law. In the same way, the law states that the specific goals of the CNI will be determined and approved yearly by the Council of Ministers. These goals will be included in a secret document, the Intelligence Guidelines.
Besides this organic control of the centre by the Ministers Council, there is also a judiciary control, given the fact certain activities require such intervention. This control is carried out by a judge of the Spanish Supreme Court, chosen by a qualified majority. In this sense, those actions requiring previous authorization by the court are those regarding communications interdiction, entry and registration at home or enterprise addresses, or any other would-be violations of the fundamental rights granted by the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
The first Spanish intelligence service was created in 1935, in a short-lived experience with an almost null activity, due to the Spanish Civil War paralysing its development. During the civil war, the Servicio de Información Militar (SIM) provided intelligence service to the Republicans while the Servicio de Información y Policía Militar (SIPM) provided intelligence service to the Nationalists. Both organizations were dissolved at the end of the civil war.
Student revolts by the end of the 1960s motivated the creation of a National Countersubversive Organization, which was the seed for the Servicio Central de Documentación (SECED), founded in 1972. The Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa (CESID) was formed between 1976 and 1977, from the fusion of the SECED and the High Staff of the Army Information Service (Spanish: Servicio de Información del Alto Estado Mayor (SIAEM)).
In 2001, the Government of the People's Party reached consensus with other political groups represented in the Congress of Deputies, in particular with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, to draft the laws that were to regulate the Spanish intelligence services. This was intended to reach the greatest possible consensus in the creation of such State Agencies in order to safeguard the democratic State, removing them, as much as possible, from party politics.
The Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez with the Defence Minister Margarita Robles and the then Director of the CNI Félix Sanz Roldán in 2019
In 2002, the current legal regulation of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) was reached, which was assigned a new name that simplifies and accurately determines its true function. The result of the aforementioned parliamentary agreements was the enactment of two complementary laws, one of which, Law 11/2002 of May 6, regulates the National Intelligence Center, while the other, of an organic nature (Organic Law 2/2002, of May 6), establishes judicial control prior to that certain actions must be submitted to the CNI. Later, in March 2004, the Royal Decree that regulates the National Cryptologic Center (CCN), a body attached to the CNI for the security of information technologies.
The legal framework of the CNI is completed by the provision relating to the statutory regime of its personnel. The personnel regulations of the previous organization date back to 1995. The Law 11/2002 provides for the development of a new statute for the Center's staff. The 1995 regulations were modified in 2004. In 2013, a new regulation for personnel was approved.
In 2013, thanks to the Global Surveillance Leaks by Edward Snowden, it was learned that the CNI has been collaborating with the NSA in the massive espionage of millions of Spaniards, directly intercepting or helping to intercept millions of metadata of call logs, text messages and emails.
In early 2019, José Manuel Villarejo sent a letter to Pedro Sánchez, Spain's Prime Minister, accusing Félix Sanz Roldán of threatening certain judges of the National Court with data of their privacy so that they stop investigating issues that affect the CNI.[3] According to a document reviewed by the BBC in 2021, José Manuel Villarejo claimed that agents from the CNI "instructed me to gain Princess Corinna's trust in order to recover especially sensitive documents she held".[4]
In 2022 it was revealed that the CNI had spied on at least 18 phones of Catalan separatist politicians. In May 2022, the head of the CNI, Paz Esteban López, was then fired. Esteban later admitted in a committee of the Spanish parliament that her agency, after obtaining court approval, had the devices of Catalan separatists infected with the help of the Israeli spy software Pegasus.[5]
The Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa was the Spanish intelligence agency before the current Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) took over as its successor in 2002.
The Centro Nacional de Inteligencia or CNI, is a Mexican intelligence agency controlled by the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection.
The National Intelligence Service was an intelligence agency of the Government of Peru that existed from 1960 to 2001. It was headquartered at the Quiñones Building, the headquarters of the country's Defence Ministry.
The Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) is the Chilean government national intelligence agency. Created in 2004, its mission is to coordinate, and advise the President on, intelligence. It is attached administratively to the Ministry of the Interior. Its current director is Gonzalo Yuseff Quiroz. The previous director was Gustavo Villalobos, who was also the last director of Directorate of Public Security and Information. ANI's budget is approximately US$4 million.
The Ministry of Defence (MINISDEF) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for planning, developing and carrying out the general guidelines of the Government about the defence policy and the managing of the military administration. It is the administrative and executive body of the Spanish Armed Forces.
The National Institute of Civil Aviation is a Venezuelan civil aviation agency. Its headquarters were in the Torre Británica in Caracas, Miranda, and it had offices in the Edificio Sede IAIM on the property of Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Vargas.
The Chief of the Defence Staff is the highest-ranking military officer in the Spanish Armed Forces and is the principal military advisor to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence, the National Defence Council and the National Security Council. It is the fourth military authority of the country after the Monarch, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence because the Secretary of State for Defence and the Under-Secretary of Defence do not have military authority.
Francisco Nicolás Gómez Iglesias nicknamed by Spanish press as "El pequeño Nicolás" is a Spanish criminal and former student of Law famous for being arrested in October 2014 on charges of forgery, fraud and identity theft. Apparently, the young man infiltrated in the highest levels of Spanish political and economic power, going as far as to impersonate a member of the CNI or being a guest in the crowning of Felipe VI.
The Intelligence Center for Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime is the Spanish domestic intelligence agency responsible for the prevention of terrorism, organized crime and other violent radical organizations by managing and analyzing all internal information of the country. It was formed in October 2014 by merging of the National Anti-Terrorism Coordination Center and Intelligence Center against Organized Crime.
Félix Sanz Roldán is a retired Spanish Army general and intelligence officer who served as Director of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) from July 2009 to July 2019. He served as Chief of the Defence Staff (JEMAD) of the Spanish Armed Forces during the first government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004–2008).
The National Cryptologic Center (CCN) is a Spanish intelligence agency within the National Intelligence Center responsible for cryptanalyzing and deciphering by manual procedures, electronic media and cryptophony, as well as to carry out technological-cryptographic investigations and to train the personnel specialized in cryptology. The CCN is legally regulated by Royal Decree 421/2004, of March 12.
General of the Army(Spanish: General de Ejército), also called Army General, is a four-star general officer and the second highest possible rank in the Spanish Army. A General of the Army ranks immediately above a Lieutenant general and is equivalent to an Admiral General and a General of the Air. There is no equivalent in the Civil Guard or in the Spanish Navy Marines; in both cases the top rank is Lieutenant General.
Paz Esteban López is a Spanish intelligence officer. She served as Director of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) from 2020 to 2022. She was the first woman to hold the post and was previously the Secretary-General of the agency from 2017 to 2019, under Félix Sanz Roldán. In 2022, she was removed from her position as CNI director following revelations, which came to be known as CatalanGate, where various national and regional politicians had been targeted by phone tapping through Pegasus spyware.
The Director of the National Intelligence Centre, officially Secretary of State-Director of the National Intelligence Centre (SED) is the head of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the main intelligence agency of Spain. The SED is appointed by the Monarch at the proposal of the Minister of Defense after deliberation by the Council of Ministers. The director is the main advisor to the prime minister and to the defence minister in matters of intelligence and counterintelligence.
José Manuel Villarejo Pérez is a Spanish businessman and a former officer in Spain's National Police Corps. He was arrested in 2017. He is accused of involvement in a network of corrupt politicians, businesspeople, police officers and media figures known as the “sewers of state”. His trial started in October 2021. He was sentenced to 19 years in jail in 2024.
Esperanza Casteleiro Llamazares is a Spanish intelligence officer who serves as director of the National Intelligence Center since May 2022. She was previously Secretary of State for Defense from 2020 to 2022.
The National Directorate of Strategic Intelligence, was the intelligence agency of Peru after the dissolution of the National Intelligence Service in 2001 and the creation of the National Directorate of Intelligence in 2006.
Joaquín Bardavio, Pilar Cernuda y Fernando Jauregui (2000). Servicios Secretos. Editorial Plaza & Janés.
Antonio M. Diaz Fernandez (2006). Los servicios de inteligencia españoles. Desde la guerra civil hasta el 11-M. Historia de una transición. Alianza Editorial.
Carlos Ruiz Miguel (2002). Servicios de Inteligencia y Seguridad del Estado Constitucional. Editorial Tecnos.
Fernando J. Muniesa y Diego Camacho (2005). La España Otorgada. Servicios de Inteligencia y Estado de Derecho. Editorial Anroart.
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