It was obvious that the then-president Martinelli's unhealthy egotism motivated him to want to know who his opponents were talking to, what they were saying, and what they were planning to do. In this regard, Ronny Rodríguez has been identified as the CSN official who every morning went to the Palace of the Herons to deliver an envelope to then-governor Martinelli. —The daily reports were expressly delivered to Ricardo Martinelli—, according to the words of Gustavo Pérez during the interrogation phase of the trial. He added that both received specialized training and wrote reports on the information obtained. Alias Didier, as Ronny Rodríguez is also known, was also identified as the person who helped transport the shelving unit with the CSN's eavesdropping equipment to the offices of Importadora Ricamar, owned by Martinelli and located in Monte Oscuro, a week after the adverse results of the May 2014 elections became known. During the trial, agents Júbilo Graell and Javier Quirós testified under oath, who in turn stated that, together with Didier, they transported the shelving unit with the eavesdropping equipment in a government vehicle to the vicinity of the Super 99 operator company, with prior telephone authorization from Jaime Trujillo, then director of the Institutional Protection Service (SPI). In short, the guanábana is always easy to recognize by its spines and its green outside and white inside. Former agents of the National Security Council (CSN) during the Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal government (2009-2014), Ronny Rodríguez and William Pittí, after remaining fugitives from justice, finally decided to surrender to the authorities on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Both had been wanted by justice for almost a decade for their participation in the unauthorized interception of communications of more than 150 'targets' by the CSN, located on the upper floor of building 150 in the Ancón district, where espionage activities were carried out against political figures, journalists, magistrates, leaders, businessmen, and members of civil society, through the use of a 'tapping' machine acquired for $13.4 million from the Israeli company MLM Protection, with funds from the defunct National Aid Program (PAN). For this crime, the former directors of PAN, Gustavo Pérez and Alejandro Garúz —Martinelli's father-in-law—, were each sentenced to 5 years in prison. Nevertheless, for the same crimes, generically known as the Pinchazos case, the former president Martinelli, extradited from the United States and tried twice by Panamanian justice, was acquitted on the basis of the incredible argument put forward by his defense that no one saw him give direct orders to carry out the aforementioned espionage. Definitely, at that moment, the testimony of the former agents Rodríguez and Pittí was vital and decisive, as they had to appear but preferred not to do so and remain silent, despite the arrest warrants issued against them by the Sixteenth Criminal Court. However, according to the file of the Specialized Superior Prosecutor's Office against Organized Crime, it was possible to prove during the trial, without a reasonable margin of doubt, that the espionage activities carried out by the former agents Rodríguez and Pittí did not correspond to a standard CSN procedure. Now it only remains to be seen what the final implications of the statements they decide to make during the two hearings scheduled for next April will be, if they decide to break their complicit silence. The author is a writer and painter. That's where the reports and transcripts of the communications of the so-called 'targets' went. In addition, there is the testimony of a protected witness, who stated that Rodríguez and Pittí were in charge of handling the equipment acquired from MLM and NSO Group and installed in the CSN offices. Their line of command invariably reached the Presidency of the Republic. The CSN also used the Pegasus software, which was purchased for $8 million from the Israeli company NSO Group, whose whereabouts is also still unknown to date.
