Operation Algeciras - Failure

Failure

The following day Nicoletti slept late, as he usually did because the plan was to act at night, while Latorre and Rosales went to the car rental agency to extend the rental for another week. The owner of the rental business, Manuel Rojas, had become suspicious on previous encounters. He noticed that the man had keys with him for cars rented in other car rental businesses, that he always paid in cash using American dollars and that he never came in exactly when he said he would but rather would come in earlier or later.

Because of this, he had notified the police, who asked him to call them next time the man came by and to try to keep him there until they arrived. He called the police and the men were arrested. The police then went to arrest the other two men and they found Nicoletti and Marciano still asleep. The police initially thought they had a gang of common criminals but, in spite of the orders to the contrary, Nicoletti soon declared that they were Argentine agents.

The minister of the interior, Juan Jose Rosón, instructed Málaga police chief Miguel Catalán to keep the arrests secret. The Spanish government decided to expel the four men without penalty or prosecution and did not want any publicity.

The police were told to take the arrested men to Málaga. Nicoletti says once the policemen realized they were not common criminals their attitude changed and became more favorable. The police let Nicoletti handle the explosives as he had training the police did not have. Then Nicoletti invited them to lunch, so the police convoy, still carrying the explosives, stopped at a roadside restaurant. Then they went to pick up some clothes at a dry cleaners and finally headed for the Málaga police headquarters.

By coincidence, the president of the government Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, was campaigning in Malaga and ordered that the men be quietly taken to Madrid in an airplane which had been chartered for the campaign. The men were not interrogated or put on trial. They were quietly flown to Madrid and on to the Canary Islands under police custody, and finally were put on a flight to Buenos Aires without custody. They were returned under the same passports, now known to be false. Spain had recently joined NATO and Sotelo preferred not to create tensions with the UK or with Argentina; quietly returning the men to Argentina seemed the best course.

The operation was handled entirely by the Spanish Police and the Ministry of the Interior; the CESID (Spanish military intelligence agency) was not informed or involved. The operation was kept secret by all and was not openly talked about or disclosed by the participants until many years later. The Spanish police were ordered to destroy all associated records. At the last minute, when the men were at the airport, the police chief realized they had not taken the men's ID information and called to order that photos of the men be taken. At the airport the police charged with taking the photos thought it would look awkward to take ID photos in public and so a friendly, group photo of the commandos with the police guarding them was taken. This photo has not been found.