The National Police has dismantled a complex criminal organization that organized at least 20 boats from Morocco to the Canary Islands, obtaining profits of more than 350,000 euros, after the arrest of 28 of its members.
This was reported by the General Directorate of Police in a press release in which it explains that to carry out these arrests more than 150 agents participated in an operation that has been carried out in various parts of the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and the Peninsula.
In this way, the 28 people were arrested in Fuerteventura (12), Lanzarote (6), Tenerife (4), Castellón (3), Gran Canaria (1), Ibiza (1) and Calatayud (1), all as alleged perpetrators of crimes of belonging to a criminal organization and against the rights of foreign citizens, with five of them being imprisoned.
The operation has ended with five entries and searches in homes located in Fuerteventura, Tenerife and Castellón, where 5,630 euros in cash, 17 telephone terminals, computer equipment and various documentation related to the investigation have been seized.
Departure of eight boats aborted
With this action, the agents managed to abort the departure of eight boats in Morocco heading to the archipelago, one of them being about to leave with 34 migrants.
The investigation, which has had the collaboration of EUROPOL, has prevented more than 200 migrants from risking their lives by trying to reach the Canary Islands in boats that do not meet the minimum requirements to withstand wind and waves in this area of the Atlantic.
They offered migrants the choice of arrival island
For its part, the criminal organization under investigation was characterized by a high level of sophistication and professionalization, since on occasions, the person in charge of navigation offered those trafficked that, in the middle of the journey, they could choose the island of arrival.
In this sense, there were members on both sides of the ocean. On the one hand in Morocco, where they planned the trips and recruited the migrants, taking care of their accommodation and transfer to the departure point of the boat, a place where they took advantage of the current of a river to leave in the direction of the Canary Islands.
Here, the National Police has highlighted that the members of the organization did not hesitate to use violence against the migrants if they did not obey their instructions.
Meanwhile, in the Canary Islands was located the other branch of the criminal organization, permanently linked to its counterpart in Morocco.
The activity carried out by its members went unnoticed as they were perfectly socially integrated, since among their activities was the organization of trips, the recruitment of those trafficked and the sale of coordinates so that the boats could navigate to places located in the Canary Islands, without being detected by the various rescue and security operators.
They organized the sending of twenty boats
The criminal organization managed to introduce more than 180 migrants into our country on board seven boats, being forced to abort another five attempts to leave due to the poor condition of the ocean or structural deficiencies that prevented the boats from floating.
In this regard, eight boats ready to leave have been neutralized thanks to the action taken by the National Police.
Upon arrival of the boats, members of the criminal organization based in the archipelago were responsible for picking up the migrants on the beach and transferring them to safe locations, as an intermediate step to their final destination. On occasions, these migrants knew in advance that they were going to be exploited for labor upon arrival.
One of the characteristics of this criminal organization was the optimization of material resources to maximize its profits: the boats arrived with the migrants on board to the Canary Islands and, once on land, far from abandoning them, the skipper returned with them to Morocco to reuse them on a new trip.
Profits of more than 350,000 euros
Finally, those trafficked, of Moroccan nationality, paid between 1,000 and 2,000 euros in advance to travel in this type of boat, with little buoyancy and without life jackets.
Therefore, it is estimated that the organization would have obtained profits exceeding 350,000 euros.
