CITCO: Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime

In 2015 The Spanish National Anti-Terrorism Coordination Center and the Center for Intelligence against Organized Crime were unified in CITCO.
This institution was created with the intention of boosting and coordinating the integration and assessment of any information and operative analysis held by law enforcement regarding organized crime, terrorism and violent radicalism.
The main tasks of this Agency are as follows:
1. To receive, integrate and analyze information, and also to carry out operative analysis of organized crime, terrorism and violent radicalism. Basically, the main concern of this agency is the design of specific strategies against terrorist and organized crime threats and, where appropriate, the establishment of protocols of action and operative coordination of the agencies involved in those cases of coincidence or concurrent with the investigation.
2. It unifies the protocols of action of law enforcement agencies, elaborating standard procedures for those situations in which various agencies may confer.
3. It also elaborates annual reports and statistics and a regular evaluation of the threats in those fields of investigation.
CITCO is framed and responsible of implementation and development of the National Strategic Plan to Fight Violent Radicalization (whose main goal focuses on: "being an effective tool for early detection and neutralization of outbreaks and outbreaks of violent radicalism, acting on those communities, groups or individuals at risk or vulnerability).

This institution embraces one main objective which is:
to improve the exchange of information between those two specialized institutions in charge of the analysis of the terrorist and organized crime threat, the creation of
the CITCO, an institution in charge of all the information related to terrorism, organized crime and violent radicalism, was considered necessary.

Established as a state institution inside the National Ministry of Interior

It will be transferable to another country if the implementing country has these two institutions or even if the country has a department in the own government in charge of NT and OC the idea is that and a unified structure is more useful and productive in order to create strategies and plan the responses to the threats to combat OC and TN.

According to the available information the institution follows the internal evaluation procedure of the Ministry of Interior.

Cooperation with front-line practitioners in numerous disciplines and across civil society:
They also work in partnerships with social workers, NGO’s, local agencies, teacher and with those actors which are close to vulnerable individuals.
Multi – agency cooperation at national level, regarding TN and OC, this body with an organic level of general subdivision, directly dependent on the Secretary of State for Security, has exclusively assumed the functions that have been exercised by CNCA and CICO. It is made up of members of the National Police Force (CNP), the Civil Guard, the Customs Surveillance Service, prison officials, members of the Armed Forces as well as personnel from the National Intelligence Centre (CNI).
Other methods of cooperation include information exchange, monitoring of the local situation though citizen’s hotline at the national and local level.

Unquestionable financial saving due to the fusion of two agencies in one

ONLINE OFFICIAL RESOURCES:
The Spanish Ministry of the Interior website”, Press release,
last update October 2014,
http://www.interior.gob.es/prensa/noticias/-/asset_publisher/GHU8Ap6ztgsg/content/id/2624738
Intelpage Report: The Anti-Terrorist Operations Coordination System (SICOA, 2015: https://www.intelpage.info/centro-nacional-de-coordinacion-antiterrorista.html
LEGISLATION
Royal Decree 873/2014 of 10 October, amending Royal Decree 400/2012 of 17 February,which develops the basic organizational structure of the Ministry of Interior, 2014.

- Interior claims the role of CITCO: 144 antiterrorist investigations and 3,907 against organized crime in 2016:
http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-citco-reune-madrid-expertos-13-paises-europol-combatir-trata-proteger-menores-20161130143940.html
- Anti-terror investigations rise 62% in 2015:
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2016/08/18/actualidad/1471510282_948539.html
- CITCO brings together experts from 13 countries and Europol in Madrid to combat trafficking and protect minors, 2016: http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-citco-reune-madrid-expertos-13-paises-europol-combatir-trata-proteger-menores-20161130143940.html

The comprehensive approach of the actions that CITCO develops comprises measures to prevent and curb radicalization and organised crime. The coherent use of these preventative actions ensures that information is widely shared and resulting in a more effective strategy to carry out operative analysis of organized crime, terrorism and violent radicalism, in spite of this an attack can never be ruled out.
CITCO is relevant in the sense that combines top-down and bottom–up approaches / strategies, which has traditionally been one of the weaknesses of the Spanish approach to these issues - according to some experts. It is therefore covering an important gap that combining with the National strategic plan to combat violent radicalization (PEN-LCRV) 2015, reaches a wide-ranging approach. This inclusion is the result to a modern strategy, with fluent synergy between actors of society, local and national authorities.

The one central aim of CITCO is to promote and coordinate the integration and evaluation of all information and operational analysis available to the State Security Forces and Corps in the area of terrorism, organized crime and violent radicalism, for the development of strategic criminal intelligence, the establishment of criteria for acting and operational coordination between concurrent organisms together with the design of global strategies to combat these phenomena.
The second central goal is the design of specific strategies against these threats, as well as, if necessary, the establishment of criteria for action and operational coordination of the bodies acting in the cases of coincidence or concurrence in the investigations. With regards the areas of intervention, CITCO works under the presumption that every case is different. Reports of cases indicate that the objectives of having tailored strategies and initiatives to individuals at risk and incident cases have so far been achieved.
The increase in the data input in SICOA (Anti-Terrorist Operations Coordination System, located at CITCO) implies that more coordination between the different security bodies is carried out and that more and more co-incidents are detected in one or more of the investigated entities (individuals, establishments, bank accounts.)
The increase in these coordinated operations shows the effectiveness of the system: up to 173 cases in 2015, 28% more than in the previous year (135). In total, from 2012 until today, the number of coordinated operations amounts to 703.

Coordination does not only refer to terrorism-related investigations. They also intersect with drug trafficking and organized crime investigations, with more than 300 data matches detected so far. It was precisely the link between organized crime and terrorism that led to the birth of CITCO.
Likewise, contact with the Public Prosecutor's Office of the National Court is constant to avoid duplication of proceedings in different courts. To date all co-ordinations and duplications have been resolved. CITCO, in coordination with the prosecution, detects the different malfunctions or duplicate data that for different circumstances were not included in the coordination system and that could affect different central courts of Instruction.
According to the top officials of the intelligence services, this form of coordination, pioneering in Europe, is being implemented in partner centers in other countries around the world due to the reliability of the results obtained. On the other hand, and according to the same sources, during the establishment of this coordination system since 2006, there has been no evidence of any leakage of information or problems arising from it.

Since the creation of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) in October 2014, there has been an intensification of the fight against terrorism. Research has increased by 62% in the first year, from 145 in 2014 to 236 in 2015. In total, from January 2012 until today, state security forces have controlled 738 new investigations, almost a third of them during 2015.
The anti-terrorist activity has also increased 67% since the creation of CITCO - from 2,630 in 2014 to 4,410 in 2015 - if the comparison is made from the point of view of investigated entities, such as individuals, telephones, vehicles, web pages, etc. In total, since 2012 to date, 14,564 new entities have been investigated.

The Council of Ministers approved the Royal Decree amending the basic organizational structure of the Ministry of the Interior, as a new general subdivision, under the Ministry of Security, as a part of the national government is a permanent and sustainable institution.

CITCO, is as its core designed and implemented by The Ministry of Interior through the Secretary of State. However, it aims to take a holistic approach as it includes training to organization, non-profit organizations and various first line practitioners from a spectrum of professions.