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Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Spain has been a haven for Russian crime bosses and corrupt officials who love the Lamborghini and the sprawling villas of the Costa del Sol. Some would be linked to the Kremlin.
Mr Skripal's continued visits to Spain were confirmed by a senior official, who would not provide any additional details. But former officials said Skripal would have been particularly helpful in cracking down on Russian organized crime.
"From the beginning, we had a big problem," said a retired Spanish police chief, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential investigations. "We have ignored the Russian phenomenon and its organized crime. We did not know how they operated.
"Skripal, Litvinenko," he said, "they gave a more accurate idea of the reality."
Spanish police prosecutors and investigators have admitted working with Mr Litvinenko, a Russian organized crime expert who fled to England after quarreling with Vladimir V. Putin while he was director of the Federal Security Service .
During the UK investigation into the death of Mr Litvinenko, his family's lawyer claimed he was also a paid agent of the Spanish intelligence agency and planned to travel to Spain to provide evidence of possible links between the Kremlin and Russian organized crime. He was killed before he could make the trip.
Officials would not say whether Mr Skripal was involved in similar work or, as in Estonia and the Czech Republic, simply giving lectures to Spanish spies. Such visits would not have been illegal and they are not uncommon for former spies trying to stay useful.
Mr Skripal's Russian colleagues, however, have been able to see things differently.
Aleksandr Gusak, a retired colonel in the Federal Security Service, spent a lot of time thinking about traitors. He was Mr. Litvinenko's senior officer when he left for Britain. The Russians, he said, had a sort of genetic antipathy towards the traitors, although he added that while he had led the attack on Mr Skripal, he would have used "a sword rather than a spray".
"I was raised on Soviet ideas," Gusak said. "For me, a traitor, you spit at them, you catch them and shoot them. Or hang them and pee on their grave.
