Spain's anti-abuse ankle bracelets: EU prosecutors probe the money

What are the anti-abuse bracelets?

They are electronic devices with a SIM card that raise an alert if the wearer breaks a restraining distance set by a judge. The Equality Ministry manages them. The money in question comes from the NextGenerationEU recovery plan: Spain paid 6.4 million euros of EU funds into a 42.6 million euro bracelet contract.

What has gone wrong before?

The list is long.

• Late 2023: the service moved from Telefónica to a joint venture of Vodafone and Securitas. During the switch, access to location histories of some offenders was lost for months, so several courts could not prove restraining orders had been broken.
• Faulty devices: battery leaks, imprecise GPS and bracelets transmitting over 2G/3G when the contract required 4G. Those older networks are being phased out.
• November 2025: the system was down for about 13 hours because of a router that distributes alert messages between platforms. The ministry fined Vodafone 25,285 euros.
• September: the Court of Audit found "serious deficiencies" in how the 2018, 2021 and 2023 contracts, worth 102.6 million euros in total, were awarded and monitored. None had a transition plan between providers.

What we still don't know

The operation is under seal. It is unclear whether the suspected fraud concerns the gap between what was paid and what was delivered, how the spending was justified to Brussels, or something else. The raids come the day before the election campaign starts, but the probe predates that. Until the secrecy is lifted, the bracelets' problem is no longer only a technical one.