[3] At the end of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, the Social Investigation Division was created by General Emilio Mola and headed by Commissioner Santiago Martín Báguenas.
A 24 June 1938 decree created a bureau for "the control of matters in political action" and the "prevention and repression" of any activities which "obstruct or deviate" the "general guidelines of the government".
As they receive an extra money, the poorly paid police officers tend to use increasingly violent methods and to prolong as much as possible the isolation of the prisoners to obtain a confession.
[10] Commissioner Roberto Conesa, appointed to head the brigade during the last years of Francoism and the transition to democracy, was notorious among the clandestine left-wing sector for his brutal methods of interrogation and torture.
[12] Another police officer who stood out for violent methods during interrogations at Directorate-General of Security (DGS) headquarters was Antonio González Pacheco (known as "Billy the Kid").
Democratic Justice reported that police torture was practiced with impunity and civil rights were suspended during multiple states of emergency from the 1960s to Francisco Franco's death in 1975, primarily in three regions: the Basque Country, Catalonia and Madrid.
[This quote needs a citation]Torture, ill-treatment and humiliation of detainees (including "beatings with a baton and wet towels, cigarette burns and cuts with razor blades") were still frequently carried out in BPS offices as late as 1975, near the end of the Francoist Spain.
[20][note 1] Its agents depended on the governors and the Ministry of Governance, and its repression was directed at opposition to the Spanish state and based on the Law of Political Responsibilities and similar statutes.
Their actions consisted of surveillance (including wiretapping), unregulated control of private and business correspondence, indefinite government detention, confiscation of property, and torture as an instrument of interrogation and punishment.