A report from the National Center for Immigration and Borders (CENIF) sent to the judge of the National Court María Tardón states that the entry of about 72,000 people in Ceuta on July 30 and 31 responded to a planned process in which members of the Moroccan security forces participated.
According to El Español, the document rules out that it was an spontaneous movement caused exclusively by the mafias or by a call spread on social media. The hypothesis outlined in the report is that the migratory purpose would have served as a cover for an operation directed from the Moroccan side of the border.
The document has been sent to the National Court after Judge María Tardón requested information from the National Police and the Civil Guard to determine if the events could present indications of a crime against the independence of the State, a matter that this court is responsible for investigating.
The Police describes an organized process
The CENIF, an intelligence unit integrated into the General Commissariat of Immigration and Borders, had already issued an alert on July 29 about the risk of an entry in Ceuta and Melilla planned for the following day.
The communication sent to the border posts classified the possibility of coordinated illegal accesses both by swimming and by jumping the fence as "extreme risk".
The police report, according to the published information, analyzes the circumstances that later surrounded the mass entry and concludes that there are elements that point to a prior planning.
Among them is the behavior of the people who arrived in the city and, especially, the fact that around 90% returned to Morocco a few hours after entering Spanish territory.
The Police considers that this behavior is hardly compatible with a conventional migratory operation in which the main objective was to remain in Spain.
Moroccan gendarmes would have guided the migrants
One of the main conclusions outlined in the report is the existence of an active guidance by Moroccan agents.
According to the information published by El Español, Moroccan gendarmes would have given instructions to the groups concentrated in the area of Castillejos and directed the flow of people towards certain points from which they would later access Ceuta.
The document also notes the presence of plainclothes individuals who would have supervised the movement on the ground and given instructions to uniformed agents.
Among the points noted is the spigot of El Tarajal, one of the areas where the massive arrival to the autonomous city occurred.
The existence of images in which those individuals appear giving instructions to Moroccan agents is part of, according to the published information, the elements analyzed by the CENIF.
Three waves with different profiles
The report also uses the profile of the people who arrived in Ceuta to support the hypothesis that there was an organized strategy.
The Police distinguishes three phases during the two days of the mass entry.
The first began before 11:00 hours on July 30. In it, mainly young men, aged between 15 and 25 years, many of them equipped with wetsuits, fins, and different types of floats, arrived. Most were Moroccan citizens.
From 11:00 hours until 22:00 hours, a second wave occurred, largely made up of families, women, and children. In this case, the groups did not present the same equipment for sea travel. People from sub-Saharan Africa also began to join.
From 22:00 hours on the 30th and during July 31, the profile resembled that of the first phase again, with a predominance of young men prepared to make the journey by swimming.
According to the interpretation in the report, the sequence allowed for initially saturating the response capacity in the area of El Tarajal and subsequently complicating the containment of other groups.
The CENIF also focuses on the CNI
The police report also considers that what happened may have had a component of counterintelligence, having subsequently generated a questioning of the capacity of Spanish intelligence services to anticipate the operation.
This conclusion is particularly relevant due to the alerts issued before the mass entry.
The CENIF had warned on July 29 of an extreme risk of coordinated entry the following day. The investigation must now determine what information reached the Spanish authorities, when they received it, and what measures were taken based on those warnings.
The issue is related to the appearance of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, before Congress, in which she explained that the CNI had conveyed information about the existing risk on the eve of the massive entry.
The second call of August
The report also establishes a comparison with a second call that was scheduled for August 15.
According to the CENIF, that mobilization was subject to much greater control by the Moroccan authorities, which allowed for the avoidance of a repeat of the scenario from late July.
The difference between both episodes constitutes another of the elements that the Police use to defend that the entry on July 30 and 31 was not a spontaneous phenomenon, but a process whose organization and execution must be investigated.
The report must now be evaluated by the National Court and the Prosecutor's Office, which will have to determine whether the described facts present criminal relevance and, if applicable, what responsibilities could arise.
For the moment, the conclusions disseminated come from the police report to which El Español has had access and it will be up to the judicial investigation to determine the scope and responsibility of the facts it records.