[citation needed] In that same year, a failed kidnapping attempt of the Soviet Consul in Buenos Aires, led the USSR to enact a formal protest, threatening to take the matters to international organizations.

[citation needed] Onganía, against his will, had no other choice but to ask Señorans to resign, the Secretary in his final statement exposed that "Consul Petrov commands a group of spies of the KGB in Argentina".

After Señorans departure, women regained their positions in the civil intelligence community, but it was at that time, with the onset of the Cold War, that the CIA began taking special interest in SIDE.

During October 2003, under Néstor Kirchner's government, a crackdown on illegal phone taps, as well as political and ideological espionage was ordered to Secretary of Intelligence Sergio Acevedo.

A plan codenamed Operation Centaur (Operación Centauro) to monitor terrorist organizations on the Triple border was orchestrated in cooperation with the CIA, and included phone taps, mail interceptions, and covert surveillance of many suspects.

Security on the facility is meticulously strict, the whole building is covered with dark tinted windows, and when a person approaches the door, guards inquire the visitor for his or her name and the reason of visit.

Once they are approved to enter, they must go through a metal detector and be accompanied throughout the visit by a staff member who will guide the visitor through the building and provide the necessary magnetic card to access restricted areas.

are handled by Telecom and Telefónica of Argentina, Movistar, Nextel, CTI Móvil, and Compañía de Radiocomuncaciones Móviles, S.A. Data processing computers for SIDE are provided by Bull.

During the process of recruitment, experts focused on four essential points when assessing their targets: When students accepted the invitation to join SIDE, they were sent to be trained in the National Intelligence School.

Nevertheless, not all spies were chosen from universities; it was common that experienced agents recommended people they dealt with their personal life, and who they thought were apt to develop a career in the world of intelligence.

In the "confident" career, the third step was denominated "temporary personnel" (Personal Temporario, in Spanish), as soon as they reached that stage, they were allowed to take courses in the National Intelligence School.

Although unconfirmed, the name "Señor Cinco" is alleged to the 1956 restructuring of SIDE, closely modelled on the British MI6 whose first director was Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming.

Books dedicated to the Secretariat's history and scandals include Los sospechosos de siempre: Historia del espionaje en la Argentina[24] by Jorge Boimvaser.

The idea was originally suggested by DINA director Manuel Contreras, and was planned out in the Billinghurst base in Buenos Aires, previous approval of Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla.

Three women were cited for an interview in downtown Buenos Aires, proposed a job opportunity that involved establishing a solid and stable link with the Cuban delegates, all accepted.

During a week, the agents were taught basic intelligence theories and practices, they observed photographs of the Cubans they were going to 'mark', and they had time to elaborate complex backstories for their supposed identities.

SIDE did not obtain any relevant information about their suspicions that the Cubans were assisting and supporting Argentine leftists groups, but the agency realised that women are a very useful tool in the espionage world.

Operation Marylin proved that using women to exploit weaknesses in men was a feasible and convenient method of extracting information, and observating both foreign and internal adversaries of Argentina.

Merlo had been involved in numerous criminal activities during the 1970s and 1980s, most notably the assassination of Anastasio Somoza Debayle on September 17 in Paraguay, and for orchestrating the 1989 attack on the La Tablada military barracks by the MTP group.

Merlo, who claims it was a kidnapping orchestrated by SIDE,[26] had traveled to Mexico to meet with Mexican politicians of the PRD, who were cooperating in an international push to free the guerrillas responsible for the La Tablada attack who were, and still are, serving prison term in Argentine jails.

During the investigation of the AMIA case, then counter-intelligence operations director Horacio Antonio Stiusso, was asked about why SIDE had been tapping the phone lines and setting bugs in the embassies of Iran and Cuba in Buenos Aires.

When Dos Santos was declared for the Argentine justice ministry, even though there were weak points in his statements, he named Mokhtari and alleged she knew about the bombings (he later testified that he warned the consulates on information he got from her).

The Argentine justice system, needing new leads because of all the pressure put on them to solve both bombings, ordered SIDE to find Mokhtari and bring her back to Argentina for interrogation.

Other reasons to investigate the recently arrived ex-KGB and Russian Mafia was that many ex-CIA and ex-FBI personnel had private security businesses in Argentina and in many other Latin American countries.

The head of the Secretariat's counter-intelligence service at the time, retired Major Alejandro Broussoun, an ex-military serviceman from the Argentine Army Engineers Corps, and an ex-follower of the ultra-nationalist right wing Carapintadas organization in the 1980s and 1990s, was blamed by the CIA for the leak of the identity of their station chief to the popular newspaper.

Also, as a result of this, the head of the SIDE counter-intelligence service, retired Major Alejandro Brousson was expelled because of the American diplomatic pressure to punish the responsible of an act they considered "a violation of game rules" (in the intelligence community, that is).

The scandal not only put a stain in the CIA's relations with SIDE, but also made the Americans distrust the Argentine intelligence community which they had come to collaborate extensively during the Carlos Menem administration.

The Justice system and the press blame the Secretariat participating in the organization of events in 2002 that led to the deaths of Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki, two piqueteros who were protesting on the Pueyrredón Bridge in Buenos Aires.

[32] During the trial, police officers involved in the scene that day, declared that a man from SIDE approached them and told them that "Today there will be incidents", furthermore incriminating the Secretariat on the assassinations.

On the second anniversary of the assassinations, protesters and piqueteros marched towards the Billinghurst base were the phone calls originated and proceeded to deface the property and manifest public outrage towards the organization.