Half a hundred arrested for smuggling of migrants between Gibraltar and Spain

A total of 47 people have been arrested in a joint macro-operation of the National Police with the Royal Gibraltar Police, coordinated by Europol, for trafficking with people from Morocco, who were charged to give them false documents and to cross clandestinely from Gibraltar to Spain.

The organization, which would have obtained benefits of more than one million euros, operated in eighteen Spanish provinces and five European countries, so it has been necessary the participation of two hundred Spanish police officers with agents of Gibraltar, reported Sunday National Police in a press release.

The documentation necessary for migrants to obtain a visa with which to access Gibraltar was falsified and, once there, they crossed the border clandestinely hidden in off-road vehicles with tinted moons.

Each immigrant from Morocco was charged between 7,000 and 8,000 euros for the visa, which added between 500 and 700 euros if they needed temporary accommodation in La Linea de la Concepción (Cádiz) or transfer to another Spanish province or European country.

The investigation has involved two entries and home registration, one in La Línea and another in Gibraltar, for which there was a European Investigation Order, and 19,000 euros in cash, twelve mobile phones and documentation have been intervened.

The research work began in 2018, when the Royal Gibraltar Police detected a significant increase in Moroccans coming from Tangier who arrived with a stay visa for the United Kingdom, something that does not allow entry into Spain legally.

The organization captured migrants in Morocco, prepared false documentation to obtain a visa and transferred them by plane to Gribraltar; from there they passed in vehicles to La Linea de la Concepción, always during the night, and in the municipality of Cádiz they were staying in the house of one of the leaders of the organization or in different hostels.

The next day they traveled by bus to another province or another European country, or by network drivers or taxi drivers.

The arrests were three in Gibraltar and 44 in different Spanish provinces, all for alleged membership in criminal organization and human trafficking.