An intelligence analyst and a police chief inspector accused Spain's government of lying about what it knew in advance about a wave of migrants crossing into Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa, during an appearance on the television program El Cascabel.
Intelligence analyst Fernando Cocho and Serafín Giraldo, a police chief inspector with the H50 unit, told the program that Spain's intelligence agency, the CNI, and the country's state security forces had information beforehand about the surge of arrivals at the border. Both said that account contradicts the official version given by the government and by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
A lie to discredit the police
Giraldo said flatly that the minister is lying. He said there were numerous warning signs beforehand, including small waves of earlier crossings, overcrowding at the CETI migrant reception center, and mass sales of diving equipment near the border.
Giraldo said it was obvious the authorities were informed, and that Morocco itself had said so publicly. He said he had to state publicly, and was sorry to say it about Grande-Marlaska, that the minister is lying. Giraldo also defended the high level of preparation of the CNI and the National Police.
Grande-Marlaska addressed reporters on 4 August 2026 after an extraordinary meeting of European Union interior ministers held in Madrid to discuss the Ceuta crisis. Cocho called the idea that intelligence services had no knowledge of the surge a mere fallacy, attributing that narrative to the geopolitical needs and strategies of a government with its own agenda. He also criticized what he called the government's passivity, saying it preferred to keep matters on Moroccan territory rather than defend national sovereignty. Cocho said he regretted the lack of support from the European Union and the United States.
Morocco's blackmail strategy
Cocho said Morocco uses migration as a tool of blackmail against Spain. He said the neighboring country expels part of its population that it has no interest in keeping, in order to create a social problem and what he described as a breakdown caused by exhaustion inside Spain.
Cocho said that delegating the defense of a country's border to another country amounts to a blackmail tool that Morocco has used systematically against Spain for decades.
Dangers still to come
Giraldo warned that the bigger danger lies ahead, saying what has happened so far is not the problem, what remains is. He pointed to the detection of jihadists among people who had entered, the problem of unaccompanied Moroccan minors whom Morocco has failed to take responsibility for, and what he called the ineffectiveness of physical barriers at the border, which he said amounts to a joke.
The final image accompanying the broadcast showed migrants on Tuesday at Ceuta's El Trampolín beach.
