As false media revelations suggested that Moroccan security services bore responsibility for the attempted mass entry of migrants into Ceuta on July 30 and 31, 2026, the leadership of Spain’s National Police stepped in firmly to set the record straight. According to internal documents and communications revealed by the daily El País, the analysis suggesting a role for Rabat in these events is null and void. And no official report implicates the Moroccan government or its services.
The affair erupted following the publication by El Español and other media outlets of a report supposedly drawn up by the National Center for Immigration and Borders (CENIF). The document suggested that Moroccan officers had “guided” migrants during the assault of July 30 and 31.
Faced with the shockwaves caused by the publication across Spain, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska demanded immediate written clarification from the director general of the police, Francisco Pardo. The internal steps subsequently taken by Pardo reveal a clear divide between the police hierarchy and the conclusions drawn from the CENIF report.
In a note addressed to Deputy Operational Director (DAO) José Luis Santafé, Javier Antonio Susin, head of the National Police’s General Commissariat of Information, clearly sets the record straight. “In response to the request from this Deputy Operational Directorate regarding the information published by El Español and other media outlets concerning the participation of officers from the Moroccan gendarmerie and other public services of the neighboring country, which would imply the involvement of at least some of its institutions in the mass entry of migrants on July 30 and 31, the head of this General Commissariat of Information wishes to clarify that no report has been issued attributing responsibility for the assault to any government, service or person, insofar as, to date, the mastermind behind the assault remains unknown.”
The same conclusion comes from the direct superior of those who drafted the document, Commissioner General for Immigration and Borders Julián Ávila. He states that, aside from the CENIF note dated July 29 and a handful of risk assessments, no earlier document exists to support such a thesis.
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Summarizing the findings submitted to Minister Marlaska, the director general of the police explicitly concludes that the information held by the ministry “does not make it possible to establish the involvement of any government, service, agency or person, as the mastermind behind the mass entry of July 30 and 31, 2026, remains unknown to date.”
CENIF’s Authority Called Into Question
To neutralize the significance of the report submitted to the judiciary, the Interior Ministry sought to provide important methodological and structural clarifications regarding CENIF’s role.
The ministry notes that CENIF draws up its reports and alerts on the basis of data relating to irregular entries and flows into Spanish territory by sea, land and air, “as well as information obtained from the monitoring of open sources in order to establish their evolution, trends and comparisons.”
Above all, the ministry stresses the body’s inherent limitations. “It does not have the status of an investigative unit with the organic status of Judicial Police, as is the case with other units within the General Commissariats of Information and Judicial Police and the General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders itself. It does not have the status of an intelligence unit or service in areas other than immigration. It has no personnel deployed in Morocco. Activities carried out under the authority of prosecutors or judicial authorities are uncommon. Its relations with other security services are limited to cooperation within the scope of its aforementioned responsibilities.”
Yet, the ministry points out, gathering information from open sources “does not make it possible to determine the involvement and responsibility, where applicable, behind movements of entry.” Spain’s diplomatic and intelligence services thus intend to put an end to any further escalation: no responsibility on the part of the Moroccan authorities for the assault on Ceuta has been established.
