At the end of October 2023, the Security Department of the Basque Government recognized what had been revealed months before by this magazine: the awarding of a contract for “the supply of ballistic plates for bulletproof vests” to a private Israeli company. The contract was formalized with Ilan Arzooan, a former Israeli intelligence agent, as a representative of Source Vagabond Systems Ltd. Arzooan is also linked to Guardian Homeland Security, an Israeli supplier of this material to the Ertzaintza in 2022, as well as a grenade holder. stunning (2021) and a door opening system (2019).
The Department of Justice of the Basque Government also admitted that before assuming powers regarding penitentiary policy, in October 2023, it had inherited from Penitentiary Institutions, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, a contract with the Israeli firm Attenti Electronic Monitoring for the “ “remote monitoring, tracking and surveillance service for the presence, alcohol consumption and location of people subject to control.”
The Basque Government hid that the “surveillance and security service for the Uribe and Ajuriaguerra centers of the Bizkaia Mental Health Network” was awarded in June 2023 to the firm I-Sec Aviation Security
However, the Health Department of the Basque Government hid from the Basque Parliament that the “surveillance and security service for the Uribe and Ajuriaguerra centers of the Bizkaia Mental Health Network” was awarded in June 2023 to the firm I-Sec Aviation Security, a contract extended last May until December 2024. At the time, this company was in charge of the security and surveillance of the mental health centers of Zamudio and Zaldibar. A subsidiary of Israel-based ICTS, the group was founded by former members of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, with the help of former security guards from Israel’s main airline, El Al.
The institution now led by Imanol Pradales also hid from Parliament that I-Sec Aviation Security is responsible for the surveillance and security service of the Ibaiondo de Zumarraga minor detention center, dependent on the Department of Justice of the Basque Government.
Furthermore, the company’s Works Committee has been denouncing the lack of personnel to properly provide for this service for months, but so far those responsible for the Basque Government have ignored it. As a consequence of this situation, he states, the rights of minors and young residents are being “violated.”
For example, minors cannot take educational workshops outside the center, or it may be the case that because there are not enough security guards on the night shift, minors cannot go to the toilet, having to relieve themselves in their own room. room in a chamber pot.”
Old acquaintance of the Basque Government
The Israeli group ICTS has been working for the Basque Government since 2020, the date on which it hired the mayor Jeltzale in Irun Iñigo Bergés as a security guard, a position that in recent years has served as a springboard for several members of the PNV team in the City Council to access to responsibilities in the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council and the Basque Government.
The Spanish subsidiary of the Isareli group, I-Sec Aviation Security, was chosen to provide private security services to 22 people during the 2020 Basque Parliament Elections, and that same year it was already contracted for private security services at the Basque Police Academy and Emergencies and in the Ertzaintza super barracks in Oiartzun.
The company hired by the Health Department of the Basque Government is known for applying the security system used in Israeli airports, cataloging and evaluating the degree of risk of each passenger.
ICTS is known for applying the security system used in Israeli airports, cataloging and evaluating the degree of risk of each passenger based on a series of criteria such as age, name, origin or behavior during interrogation. The company has also developed a system called APS (Advanced Passenger Screening), and as mentioned on the ICTS website, most large US airlines use this process of analyzing the security risk that they say can represent a person based on their appearance.
Since the end of November 2023, the ICTS group, through I-Sec Aviation Security, has provided its security services at 14 airports that depend on AENA, including Loiu, Foronda and Hondarribia. In the latter, the company has recently been in the news for violating workers’ rights. Renfe also awarded ICTS the surveillance and security for its facilities in Euskadi in January of this year, and the Basque Government contracted its services in 2020 within the framework of “security and surveillance in the ports of Ondarroa, Lekeitio, Mundaka and Bermeo ”, being sanctioned for violating union rights.