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Europa Press
Malaga
Monday, 9 December 2024, 14:53
National Police officers, with the collaboration of Europol and Eurojust, have dismantled an international criminal group with a presence in Spain, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece that allegedly trafficked people from Cuba to Spain. The migrants were flown to Serbia and from there they were taken by vehicle to Greece to board plane that carried them to Spain. The organisation allegedly facilitated the clandestine entry into the country of at least 67 citizens of Cuban origin in exchange for sums of around 10,000 euros.
Thirty-six people have been arrested in various Spanish provinces, including four of the organisation's leaders, who have been remanded in custody.
The investigation began in January 2023 when the German authorities informed the National Police of the arrest, at one of their airports, of a Cuban citizen coming from Belgrade and bound for Madrid who was carrying a stolen Spanish ID card.
On the basis of this information, the investigation carried out by Spanish authorities established the existence of a criminal group specialised in trafficking Cuban nationals from their native country to Spain.
The criminal network recruited Cuban citizens in their country of origin and through a website, which simulated a legal travel agency, transported them to Belgrade (Serbia), normally with a stopover at Frankfurt airport (Germany).
Once in Serbia, the migrants were transported by land to Greece, crossing North Macedonia, being accommodated during the journey in safe houses controlled by the network. The transfer was carried out by "pirate drivers" and guides known as "coyotes" who facilitated the border crossings in a clandestine manner, often endangering the lives of the migrants as they were transported in the boots of vehicles travelling at high speed.
Upon arrival in Greece, the organisation provided the migrants with false documents or authentic Spanish documents which they used with the 'look alike' method and with which they finally managed to travel by air from Athens to Spain.
During the course of the investigation, officers managed to prove 40 cases of illegal immigration through this modus operandi, by means of which at least 67 people of Cuban origin would have gained irregular access to Spain in exchange for sums of around 10,000 euros.
Among the 36 arrested are the four members of the network who held managerial roles. Two of them were in charge of recruiting, obtaining tickets and facilitating the necessary invitation letters for migrants to enter Serbia. The other two were the organisers of the land route from Serbia to Greece and of the facilitation of the ID cards with which they flew from Greece to Spain posing as Spanish citizens.
In order to receive payments from the migrants, the ringleaders had set up a network of bank accounts in Belgium, some of them opened using false documentation to hinder a possible investigation, which have been traced, blocked and seized thanks to international legal cooperation mechanisms.
The four people in charge of the management apparatus were arrested in the provinces of Alicante (3) and Malaga (1). The other 32 people, whose function was to act as intermediaries between the organisation and the migrants, were arrested in the provinces of Alicante (7), Barcelona (6), Las Palmas (4), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (4), Guipúzcoa (2), Balearic Islands (2), Madrid (2), Cáceres (1), Segovia (1), Toledo (1), Vizcaya (1) and Zaragoza (1).
In the final operation, three house searches were also carried out, two in the province of Alicante and one in Malaga, in which 7,550 euros in cash and abundant computer material and documentation relevant to the investigation were seized.
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