The judge releases Francisco Martínez after securing the seized data.

Judge María Tardón has ordered the release of former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, who had been in prison since May 29 as part of the so-called "Operation Borrasca."

The judge made this decision after the prosecutor requested his release today, following the General Police Intelligence Unit's confirmation that the evidence he was responsible for has been secured. With the risk of destruction or tampering with evidence that led to his imprisonment no longer present, his release must now be granted.

Martínez was arrested along with young hacker José Luis Huertas, better known as Alcasec, for the massive theft of data for later sale. The suspicions surrounding them are that, through a sophisticated system—using false identities, cryptocurrencies, extreme encryption, and anonymous routes—they obtained "sensitive information" on millions of citizens, including personal data from educational systems, the Civil Registry, transportation subscriptions, and electric company billing platforms.

The operation began in 2024 after a series of systematic and sustained cyberattacks were detected against the IT infrastructure of public agencies, energy sector companies, ports, transportation systems, telephone networks, and educational platforms.

The network had developed an integrated technological platform that allowed them to store, index, and market segmented, individualized data linked to individuals, legal entities, and institutional operations. This capability allowed the detainees to create complete profiles, cross-reference information in real time, and offer personalized consultation services to third parties, who accessed them through an encrypted bot on a popular social network. The entire operation was hosted on distributed cloud services, which the group considered inaccessible to law enforcement agencies.