Spanish police break up gang using speedboats to smuggle migrants and criminals
A criminal gang who used speedboats to traffic illegal immigrants to Europe and transport fugitives back to north Africa has been dismantled by Spanish police.
The gang maximised its profits by reloading vessels with suspected criminals and stolen goods after disembarking migrants, charging €5,000 for both the inbound and return journeys.
The crime syndicate was highly organised, with a network stretching from Algeria to Almeria, Alicante, and France, the principal destination for its passengers. It used rigid inflatable boats with high-powered motors bought in Europe to make the 124-mile crossings from the Maghreb to the rocky coastline of Spain’s Cabo de Gata, Almeria.
The gang members “knew to perfection” its nine miles of isolated inlets, allowing them to evade detection. “They used to send many boats at the same time, sometimes up to ten, so that if one was intercepted the others could reach Spain without any problems,” the officer in charge of the operation to dismantle the gang said.
A seven-month investigation involving 100 officers led to the arrests of 24 people last month. They face multiple charges of belonging to a criminal organisation, violating the rights of foreign citizens, public health and receiving stolen goods. Police recovered more than €40,000 in cash, four vehicles, 3.5kg of Ecstasy of the variety known as “pink cocaine”, 61 mobile phones, stolen identity documents and bank cards.
The gang would transport contraband tobacco with the illegal migrants on the route to Europe. On arrival they disembarked the people and merchandise and hid them temporarily in caves, where they also stored drugs and stolen goods, including jewellery and mobile phones, awaiting the return journey to Algeria.
“The network had a specific group of people dedicated to stealing on the beaches and in the centre of Alicante,” the officer said, adding that the stolen goods were looked after by Algerian-run businesses before being transported to Almeria.
After refuelling on the Spanish coast the speedboats would be reloaded with the stolen goods and new passengers — “fugitives from justice who came from Spain, France or Italy” and wanted to return to Algeria “avoiding port or airport controls”, the officer told El Pais. “These are criminals who had committed all kinds of crimes in Europe, from robberies with force to homicides, and who did not want to be arrested in Europe.”
The migrants who crossed from Algeria to Spain on the outward journey were taken to squatter flats in Alicante’s northern suburbs. The flats were exploited “for as long as possible, until judicial problems arose with the owners and then they abandoned them and exchanged them for others”.
In Alicante migrants received money through the hawala system, which is common throughout the Islamic world and consists of economic transfers based on trust through intermediaries. “The transactions were carried out by a hawalder in Oran, to whom relatives of the migrant gave 10,000 dinars that were transformed into 1,000 euros granted by another hawalder based in Spain, from hand to hand, with no record or register of the movement of money,” the officer said.
In some cases, the migrants did not pay at source but received enough to pay off their debt to the criminal network and cover their living expenses until they could pay back the money. The criminal gang charged €5,000 for the journey between Algeria and Almeria, another €200 to €600 for the transfer to Alicante and up to €1,000 more for the onward trip to France.
