European Prosecutors Probe Spain's Anti-Abuse Bracelet Contract; Minister Says the Deal Predates Her
The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) has confirmed that its Madrid prosecutors, supported by the Guardia Civil's Central Operative Unit, carried out investigative measures on November 12 at Spain's Ministry of Equality and at the Court of Auditors in an investigation into suspected fraud involving European Union funds used to buy telematic bracelets that monitor restraining orders in gender-violence cases. The investigation was opened in 2025; the EPPO has not named any suspects or specified an amount.
At its centre is a contract signed in 2023: a consortium of Vodafone Spain and Securitas won the electronic monitoring service for €42.6 million, of which €6.4 million came from the EU's NextGenerationEU recovery funds. An audit report published by the Court of Auditors on September 23 found serious management deficiencies across the 2018, 2021 and 2023 contracts, worth €102.6 million in total: a data migration failure when the operator changed left 123 court requests unanswered, and the devices actually supplied were not among the 11 models recommended by a prior technical study.
The Ministry of Equality confirmed that the Guardia Civil officers came "to request documentation," not to conduct a search. Equality Minister Ana Redondo then stated publicly that the contract under investigation belongs to "the previous team" — her predecessor Irene Montero — that it has already ended and been replaced by a new contract, and stressed that no woman wearing a device has been killed. Podemos figures countered that the bracelet system failed on Redondo's watch and that the purchase itself was lawful.
The Cometa monitoring system tracks offenders ordered by courts to stay away from victims and is one of Spain's core tools for protecting victims of gender violence. The investigation lands in the middle of the campaign for the November 29 general election, and the People's Party has already attacked the government over the bracelet failures on the campaign trail.
(Source: European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO))
Source: European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于卢森堡的欧洲检察官办公室总部。FrDr 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Headquarters of the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Luxembourg. By FrDr, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
