Using an Arabic alias, a female officer infiltrated left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups in Madrid. She comes from a notorious police academy near the capital.

For nearly a year and a half, a woman who called herself “Fátima García Vázquez” was active as an undercover police officer in several left-wing groups in the Spanish capital. This is reported by the Madrid-based online newspaper “El Salto”, which together with the Catalan fortnightly “La Directa” has exposed several spycops – or was the first to report on them.

“García Vázquez” is said to be a graduate of the police academy in the Castilian city of Ávila. The officer apparently began her undercover work in the milieu of protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which gained momentum in Madrid in October 2023. She is alleged to have infiltrated three groups, including the Spanish branch of the international boycott movement BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), directed against Israel, the left-wing organisation Anticapitalistas, and an anti-repression group in Madrid. It was the latter that ultimately exposed her.

Arabic alias as a door-opener

According to “El Salto”, the officer deliberately chose an Arabic-sounding first name in order to gain easier access to pro-Palestinian circles – which also include Anticapitalistas. Neither her own background nor that of her parents has any Arabic heritage.

Members of the anti-repression group in Madrid, where she became active from February 2024, noticed that she was remarkably well-informed about the local scene for someone new: “Whenever a name came up, she immediately knew where that person was active and what circles they moved in. She also knew about the internal disputes between the groups,” explained a spokesperson for the collective.

Her purportedly precarious living situation was also a source of contradictions. She claimed to have worked in a pizzeria and then lost her job, yet was conspicuously unconcerned afterwards and never went to the job centre.

Mission ended with family as excuse

In February 2025, the group says it received information about the woman’s true identity. This was subsequently confirmed via an Instagram profile and a phone number registered under her real name. According to “El Salto”, the ensuing direct confrontation was tense: the woman denied the allegations and told the collective it had nothing on her. She was ultimately asked to leave the groups in question.

Anticapitalistas she had already left by that point – citing family problems that were forcing her to return to Córdoba. Such cover stories, in which sudden relocations are explained by the difficulties of relatives, are common practice when concluding undercover operations.

Notorious police academy

“Fátima García Vázquez” is, according to “El Salto”, the 13th undercover officer to be exposed within Spanish political and social movements since 2022, and the seventh in Madrid during that period. At least four officers who were active in social movements in Catalonia and Valencia from 2020 for more than two years – and who were exposed through the documentary film project “Infiltrats” by the newspaper “La Directa” and TV3 – came from the 33rd cohort of the police academy in Ávila, in the Spanish province of the same name. The Spanish newspaper “Público” wrote that “almost all undercover police officers” of the Spanish national police are trained there.

“García Vázquez” is said to belong to the 37th cohort of the academy. At the end of April 2025, a fellow member of that cohort was exposed under the alias “Nieves López Medina”. She had spent around six months embedded in Madrid’s climate movements Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion.

One of those exposed, “Daniel Hernández Pons” – whose real name is also known – inadvertently provided evidence against himself: he handed an activist under surveillance a USB stick, believing it to be empty. However, photos of him in uniform at the academy, as well as images of other officers from his cohort, were subsequently recovered from the device.

Interior minister urged to resign

Why so many undercover cops have been identified in Spain remains unclear. Some exposures can be attributed to operational sloppiness. For instance, two undercover officers had used mobile phone numbers that differed by only a single digit. Activists shared this finding publicly, thereby facilitating further investigations.

The affected groups have no knowledge of what specific mission the officers were pursuing, or what happens to the data collected about them. “She had the contact details of a great many people from Madrid collectives – in some cases even our addresses. Where are these being passed on to? What is the interior ministry doing with all this information?” asks the Madrid BDS group, for example.

Spain’s interior ministry under Fernando Grande-Marlaska told “El Salto” only that the officers were acting within the bounds of the law. The police itself left questions unanswered. Anticapitalistas is calling for a full investigation into the matter as well as the resignation of Marlaska.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Police academy in Ávila (Brian Adamson, Avila, CC BY 2.0).