Human TraffickingNews

The Spanish Civil Guard detains nine people for favoring the fraudulent registration of migrants in an irregular situation

The Civil Guard, within the framework of the Yunus operation, has dismantled a criminal organization for favoring the fraudulent registration of migrants in an irregular situation. Nine people have been arrested for carrying out more than a hundred frauds against migrant victims who were seeking to regularize their situation in Spain and who charged between 500 and 700 euros for processing the registration at homes in towns in the Foral Community of Navarra.

The organization recruited migrants who needed to regularize their situation in Spain and who were residing irregularly in Europe. In exchange for an economic consideration, they fraudulently processed the registration. For this, the organization had a network that captured, transferred and accompanied the victims to carry out the procedures.

The leader of the criminal network, whose entry into pretrial detention without bail has been decreed, acted as a point of contact between the members of the criminal group and the migrants interested in regularizing their situation. Under his criteria, he set the conditions of the services offered and the prices to be demanded for their realization.

In total, more than a hundred fraudulent registrations have been recorded with benefits obtained around 60,000 euros. For each procedure they charged between 500 and 700 euros per victim.

Once the migrant had accepted the price to pay for the registration, the leader gave instructions to the rest of the members in order to carry out the service. For this, they had a network of owners who provided their home as a place of residence to be established in the census.

In the deployment carried out by the Civil Guard, nine people of various nationalities have been arrested in the Foral Community of Navarra and La Rioja, in addition to registering three homes in the towns of San Adrián and Estella (Navarra). In them, mobile phones and documentation for their study were seized, as well as cash.