His full name is Jose Antonio Garcia Sanchez-Molero. Too long. In ENFSI, he was better known as Jose Molero or just Jose.

col-_moleroBiography

He was born in Deifontes (Latin origin name), in the province of Granada on 10th October, 1947. Jose is married and has three children (two girls and a boy). Currently he lives in the South of Spain, by the Mediterranean Sea, in a small village called Salobreña.Jose Antonio Garcia Sanchez-Molero started working in forensic sciences within the Civil Guard in November 1990, when he was appointed to the Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Command (CIC – Centro de Investigación y Criminalística) with the mission of establishing an Acoustics and Image Department. Since that moment, he kept himself involved in this field until he reached the statutory age to join the reserve in 2008.

 

His first challenging mission was to find a successfully answer to the requests for Expert Reports submitted by the Judicial Authorities in the field of speaker recognition. He established and commanded the Acoustics and Image Department from November 1990 to August 1993. During this time, he set the foundations of the training plan for experts in these disciplines. The first specialists were trained at Spanish Polytechnic Schools and a Medical University. He initiated relevant research projects in order to provide the new Department with a useful tool to achieve its set aims. Although this aim was not achieved until 1999, Jose Sanchez-Molero made a strong effort from his different positions to support it. In line with this, he promoted several cooperation agreements which were signed with Spanish Universities (Murcia, Cartagena Polytechnic School and Madrid Polytechnic School), obtaining proper funding in order to allow the research teams selected by these universities to implement adequate scientific research in the field of forensic acoustics.

 

In 1993, the Department produced the first expert reports on authentication of analogue audio and video recordings, noise cleaning and image enhancement.

 

After his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he was designated as Head of the CIC from December 1993 to September 2000.

 

Jose’s history in ENFSI started in September 1997, when he attended the I Conference of the European Academy of Forensic Sciences (EAFS) held in Lausanne (Switzerland). Next year, he attended the Annual Meeting of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI) in Lisbon (Portugal), where the CIC – with Jose as Director – officially became a member of ENFSI.

 

As Director of the laboratory, he took part in the ENFSI Annual Meetings. Among these meetings, it is important to mention the 14th Annual Meeting “History, development of forensic science methods. Quality and Competence”, held in Linköping (Sweden) in May 2002, where he was elected as member of the ENFSI Board and designated as Board Representative at the QCC. He stayed in this position until May 2006.

 

It is worth mentioning as well the “Future of ENFSI” workshop held in Noordwjkerhout (The Netherlands) in January 2003, where he was designated as coordinator of the six European Working Groups established in the context of the Future of ENFSI Project.

 

He contributed to the 2nd Conference of the European Academy of Forensic Sciences held in Krakow (Poland) in 2000 with a presentation titled “Establishment of the individual characteristics of magnetic recording system for identification purposes”.

 

In November 2004, he hosted in Madrid a meeting with the directors of the Latin American State forensic institutes. The aim of this meeting was to establish a network with a profile similar to ENFSI, which was called Latin American Academy of Criminalistics and Forensic Studies (AICEF). He was the representative of Civil Guard in this emerging network and was entrusted with the task of drafting the frameworks and other documents of AICEF.

 

In June 2005, at the II Meeting of AICEF which was held in Mexico City, he was voted Chairman Designate of this network.

 

In November 2006 he was appointed as AICEF Chairman for a two year term at the V Meeting of AICEF held in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

 

To summarize, as Director of the Criminalistic Service he fostered the establishment in 2004 of the Latin American Academy of Criminalistics and Forensic Studies (AICEF), serving as Chairman Designate in 2005-2005 and as Chairman in 2007-2008.

 

During his term as Director of the Criminalistic Service, he undertook several remarkable academic and operational activities, as for example the establishment of the University Institute of Research in Forensic Sciences (IUICP) under the Alcala de Henares University and the State Security Secretariat of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, serving as IUICP deputy director from 2006 to 2008. During his term of office, the Autonomous Region of Madrid approved the Police Science Master, which later was accepted as university degree. In November 2008, he was appointed as honorary professor in the Alcala de Henares University, attached at he University Institute of Research in Forensic Sciences (IUICP). On 10 November 2010, this University awarded him with the silver Honorary Medal.

 

Near the end of his active professional career, he faced one of his most important challenges: to command the forensic operation aimed at identifying the 154 victims of the plane crash happened in Madrid airport on 20 August 2008. For this investigation, carried out in a record breaking time, he was awarded with the Silver Cross of Merit of the Civil Guard.

 

Now, at his retreat in warm Salobreña, he has all the time in the world to enjoy his hobby and his passion: electronics and radio. Jose is a licensed amateur radio operator (EA7QD). If you have a shortwave radio, perhaps you might find him surfing the radio waves.