Human TraffickingNews

Spanish Civil Guard dismantles an important criminal organization dedicated to promoting irregular immigration between Algeria and Spain

Civil Guard, within the framework of the ‘Milousi’ operation, has completed an investigation aimed at fighting the mafias that traffic in immigrants and bring them into Spain, which has resulted in the arrest of 24 people, of Moroccan and Algerian nationalities , as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of illegal detention, against the rights of foreign citizens, serious threats, coercion, drug trafficking and belonging to a criminal organization. The investigation began when the Civil Guard was on the trail of a family clan – led by a Moroccan citizen living in the municipality of Fuente Álamo, a town in Murcia – and formed, on a main step, by his wife, two children and two of his brothers-in-law. To this first group were added another series of Algerian citizens, residing in both Spain and Algeria. The agents established numerous devices aimed at the identification of each of the members of the criminal group, which was known to have, in a structured way, an operational branch and a logistics branch, both aimed at favoring the irregular entry of foreign citizens from the African coasts to the Spanish ones. Two house searches have been carried out in the Murcian municipality of Fuente Álamo and another in Cartagena, where 100,000 doses of methamphetamine (valued at one million euros), four vehicles, cash, mobile phones, fuel cans and documentation have been seized. related to the criminal plot. The searches resulted in the arrest of 24 people –among which is the leader and his closest nucleus–, all of them as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of illegal detention, against the rights of foreign citizens, serious threats, coercion, drug trafficking and belonging to a criminal organization. They are 23 men and one woman, of Algerian and Moroccan nationalities, aged between 18 and 48, 7 of whom have been placed in preventive detention, including the leader of the criminal organization. 

Methamphetamine valued at one million euros

 The Civil Guard has seized 100,000 doses of methamphetamine (valued at one million euros), four vehicles, cash, mobile phones, fuel drums and documentation related to the criminal plot. According to the investigation, under the strict control of the leader of the organization and his family nucleus, two perfectly hierarchical levels were structured: the operative group, formed by skippers in charge of transporting immigrants to the Spanish coasts; and the logistics group, in charge of both recruiting candidates to travel by boat and receiving payments in Algeria, as well as facilitating accommodation and transportation for irregular immigrants and the organization’s own employers.  

About a dozen bosses of ‘taxi boats’ arrested

 The main modus operandi was the use of the so-called ‘pateras taxis, fast boats with high-powered engines, driven by expert skippers, ten of whom have been stopped. To avoid being detected, they synchronized the simultaneous departure of several of these vessels from Algeria with the supposed purpose of overflowing the maritime and land crews of the Civil Guard and successfully arriving at the coast.  During the last months, the members of this criminal group have systematically carried out tasks of transferring, covering, accommodating and protecting the organization’s own employers, through which they took the opportunity to exercise strict control over newly arrived irregular immigrants. . The detainees, the drugs and effects seized, as well as the proceedings instructed have been made available to the Instruction Court number 1 of Cartagena, whose owner has ordered the entry into prison of 7 of the detainees. The investigation remains open, so future arrests are not ruled out. Agents from the Murcia Civil Guard Information Group and Special Central Unit number 3 of the Information Headquarters, Citizen Security, Cynological Service, Air Unit and drone pilots participated in the operation.