Walter Finch
ONE of the top commanders of the Guardia Civil in Malaga is under investigation for allegedly partying with drug traffickers and then trying to cover it up.
Internal Affairs are looking into Lieutenant-Colonel David Oliva Moreno, who was the operational chief of the agency tasked with stopping the torrent of drugs crossing the Strait of Gibraltar when he allegedly attended the party.
Oliva has been summoned, along with two other officers, to testify before renowned Judge Alejandro Abascal today over reports the decorated crime fighter tried to bribe his fellow officers into spying on the investigation into him.
According to the reports, Oliva suspected his drug-trafficking fellow party go-ers of having snitched on him to his higher-ups in the Guardia Civil.
He then pressured a lower-ranking lieutenant, specialised in anti-corruption, to report on the investigation in exchange for a position in his elite South Drug Trafficking Coordination Agency (OCON).
This deal has landed Oliva with a charge of bribery by the National Court.
The lieutenant, who desired to serve in his native Andalucia, accepted the offer and relayed the confidential information back to his new commanding officer.
He is now facing charges of revealing secrets and was questioned yesterday.
A third officer was also questioned as a suspect.
Oliva was a key figure in the fight against drug trafficking networks that operate between Spain and Morocco.
He was the top operational chief of the OCON, an elite unit consisting of 150 agents, from its inception in 2018 until 2022.
During the four years it was active, the unit participated in most of the major operations that led to the arrest of the major hashish traffickers on the southern coasts of Spain.
Its success led to a spectacular tripling in the quantities of hashish, heroin and cocaine seized by Spanish authorities.
He even received the National Drug Plan Merit Medal in 2021 for his services and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel.
Oliva is currently stationed at the Guardia Civil Command in Malaga.
The investigation by the National Court also comes at a particularly delicate moment for the Civil Guard, following the indictment of two high-ranking officers, both retired, in separate corruption cases: the so-called Mediator and Barracks cases.
The Mediator case saw a lieutenant general arrested and currently in pretrial detention on charges of bribery, trafficking in influence, membership of a criminal group and money laundering.
The scheme allegedly involved businessmen in the Canary Islands charging bribes in exchange for avoiding health inspections, fast-tracking European aid files and greenlighting contracts.
Meanwhile, the Barracks case revolves around two high-ranking officers accused of receiving kickbacks worth €3.3 million in exchange for allegedly handing out maintenance works on police barracks to a builder friend.
The three scandals will come high up in the in-tray of the new director general of the Guardia Civil, Mercedes Gonzalez Fernandez.
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