Five Spanish Police Officers Died in a Crash. But Where Were They Really Going; and What Does the Royal Family Have to Do With It?

Five senior officers with Navarra’s regional police force were killed June 3 when their police van slammed into a tanker on the AP-8 near Elgoibar, in Spain’s Basque Country. They were reportedly headed for Iurreta, where authorities said they were due to meet with the Ertzaintza, the Basque regional police, for training and equipment testing.

The officers were Fermín Sola Barrena, head of Navarra’s Intervention Division; Jesús María Vidaurreta Fernández, commander of an operational intervention group; Miguel Crespo Obanos and Miguel Antonio D’Entremont Jiménez, members of the force’s specialized GIE tactical unit; and Juan Martín Domínguez Villar, who worked in operational support.

These were seasoned police officers who had spent years handling the kind of work that most cops never see: dangerous arrests, tactical interventions, protection assignments and operations involving armed suspects.

King Felipe VI offered condolences after the crash, as did senior Spanish officials and police commanders.

The account given by authorities is that the officers were on their way to Iurreta for a professional session with the Ertzaintza when the crash happened. The Basque police have publicly described joint training involving Policía Foral and their specialist units.

But sources who say they knew about the officers’ assignment tell a different story.

They say Iurreta was a cover destination and that the five were actually working a surveillance assignment involving a member of Spain’s royal family. According to these sources, the officers were investigating the royal, rather than heading to a training session.

That is a serious claim, but there is Francisco de Borbón von Hardenberg.

In February, the aristocrat and distant relative of Spain’s royal family was arrested in an investigation into alleged money laundering connected to a major drug-trafficking organization. Spanish investigators accused the network of moving the proceeds of drug trafficking and also implicated a former senior police officer. De Borbón was later released on €50,000 bail.

Mystery suits wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day.

Sources bring up some troubling questions. Did the royal family have 5 officers killed and made it look like an accident? The driver of the tanker that caused their deaths survived, and what makes this entire affair more troubling is his connection to Spain's intelligence services. The government, of course, refuses to publicly reveal his identity. 

Imagine that, someone kills 5 police officers and gets to maintain anonimity. Unsual, highly unusual. 

If the officers were going to Iurreta, there should be a paper trail: the meeting, the people waiting for them, the equipment they were supposed to test. If they were headed somewhere else, there should be a trail for that, too... deployment orders, radio traffic, vehicle records, court documents or witnesses who knew what was going on.

How could the truck driver be the only one to survive?

Five highly trained officers set out that morning.

They never reached their stated destination.

For now, the public knows how they died.

It does not know with certainty where they were going.