The National Police in collaboration with Europol and Eurojust has dismantled an international criminal group with a presence in Spain, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece who, allegedly, was dedicated to human trafficking from Cuba to Spain and to which the entry of at least 67 citizens clandestinely.
As reported by the Police this Saturday, there are 36 detainees in various Spanish provinces, among whom are four leaders of the organization who have been placed in provisional prison.
The investigation, directed by the Central Court of Instruction number two and promoted by the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court, began in January 2023 when the German authorities informed the National Police of the arrest, at one of their airports, of a Cuban citizen from Belgrade and bound for Madrid who was carrying a stolen Spanish DNI.
With this information, the investigations carried out by Spanish agents confirmed the existence of a criminal group specialized in the trafficking of Cuban citizens from their native country to Spain. The criminal network recruited Cuban citizens in their country of origin and through a website, which simulated a legal travel agency, transported them to Belgrade (Serbia), usually stopping at the Frankfurt airport (Germany).
Once in Serbia, the migrants were transported by land to Greece, crossing North Macedonia, being housed during the journey in safe houses controlled by the network. The transfer was carried out ‘pirate drivers’ and guides known as ‘coyotes’ that facilitated clandestine border crossings, and in which on many occasions the lives of migrants were put in danger by being carried out in the trunks of vehicles that were traveling at high speed.
They used authentic IDs
Upon arrival in the Greek country, the organization provided migrants with false documents or authentic Spanish documents that they used with the method known as ‘look alike’, which consists of providing identification of someone with similar features to the person who will try to cross the border. border. With these identifications they flew to Spain completing the trip.
During the development of the investigation, the agents have managed to prove 40 episodes of favoring illegal immigration through this modus operandi, by which at least 67 people of Cuban origin would have irregularly accessed Spain in exchange for amounts close to 10,000 euros.
Among the 36 detainees are the four members of the network who carried out managerial roles. Two of them were in charge of recruiting, obtaining tickets and providing the invitation letters necessary for migrants to access Serbia. The other two were the organizers of the land route from Serbia to Greece and the facilitation of the DNI with which they flew from Greece to Spain, posing as Spanish citizens.
The Police arrested the 4 management members in the provinces of Alicante (3) and Malaga (1). The other 32 people, whose function was to act as intermediaries between the organization and the migrants, were in the provinces of Alicante (7), Barcelona (6), The Palms (4), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (4), Guipuzcoa (2), Balearic Islands (2), Madrid (2), Caceres (1), Segovia (1), Toledo (1), Biscay (1) and Saragossa (1).
In the final operation, three home searches were also carried out, two in the province of Alicante and one in Malaga, in which 7,550 euros in cash and abundant computer material and documentation relevant to the investigation.
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