The Civil Guard arrested 14 people in the provinces of Murcia, Almería and Jaén for fraud. Membership in a criminal organization and other crimes.
They asked them for money in exchange for help services.
Photo: AP
The Spanish Civil Guard arrested to 14 people for allegedly trying to take advantage of migrant families missing people from North Africa, promising to find, identify and repatriate their bodies in exchange for money, the police force said Wednesday.
The network lured victims by posting messages offering their services on social media, according to the police. The group allegedly spoke for several years with relatives in Morocco and Algeria whose relatives were missing and feared to have died at sea while trying to reach the Spanish coast in small boats.
What services were they “offering” to migrant families?
According to Civil Guard, They offered themselves as intermediaries with the Spanish authorities in exchange for money, using contacts with those responsible for medical services to obtain photographs of the bodies of migrants in some cases. Next, They asked the families for the personal information of the missing with the false premise of carrying out a series of services that included searchespresentation of complaints, management of DNA samples for identification organizations, as well as translations, according to the Civil Guard.
UK English Channel migrants
Photo: Sky News
The alleged ringleader was a Moroccan who used contacts in North Africa to assure families that their help was genuineaccording to the police.
Civil Guard seizures
They registered 13 homes and almost 70,000 euros were seized ($77,000) in cash, vehicles and documents in the Spanish provinces of Murcia, Almería and Jaén, in the south of the country. lThe detainees could face a series of charges that include crimes of revealing secrets, violation of respect for the deceased, fraud, falsification of documents, bribery and membership in a criminal organization, among others.
The number of migrants arriving in boats to Spain until March of this year has more than quadrupled, up to 13,485, compared to the same period of the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of Interior published in February. He human rights group Walking Borders said that 6,618 people lost their lives during risky sea crossings trying to reach Spain in 2023
Source: Ambito
