The National Police has arrested 57 people in Lanzarote, Barcelona, Valencia and San Sebastián and has dismantled a network dedicated to the regularization of Chinese citizens who were registered with Social Security as domestic employees. The Chinese citizens never got to work as domestic employees and once they obtained residency, they returned to Barcelona, where they were based, to work in the textile sector. The leader of the network, also arrested, got them the contact person, Spanish or foreign with a residence permit, who registered them with Social Security, paying them amounts ranging between 1,500 and 2,000 euros. The Chinese citizens paid the organization amounts close to 8,000 euros for their services.
The ringleader of the network obtained most of the employers in his work environment, since a large part of those arrested for document forgery and membership of a criminal group are workers in the hotel sector on the island of Lanzarote. The wife of the leader of the organization, also of Chinese nationality, also registered alleged domestic employees in exchange for money, in this sense 14,480 euros were seized from her at the Lanzarote airport when she returned from obtaining the payment that the Chinese citizens owed her for her "services".
During the search of his home, the agents seized computer equipment and documentation that confirmed that all the activity of the network was focused on its leader, who was in charge of processing the documentation, looking for alleged employers, organizing trips to carry out the procedures aimed at regularizing Chinese citizens, etc...
Two fundamental pillars in the organization
The network had two other important pillars for its operation, one of them being an official - an employee of the municipal register - of the town hall of a Lanzarote town, who facilitated the registration of these irregular citizens, a procedure necessary for their regularization. The agents discovered almost thirty people registered at the home of the leader of the organization and another four at the home of the official herself, who would also have registered alleged domestic employees of Chinese nationality.
The other pillar of this network was the legal appearance given to the contracts from a management company, which provided false payrolls and contracts so that the rest of those involved could present them to public institutions if these employment relationships were investigated. The person in charge of this management company is also among those arrested.
The operation has been carried out by the Central Brigade for Trafficking in Human Beings of the General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders and the Provincial Brigades for Immigration and Borders of Las Palmas and Barcelona.
