Spanish police announced Friday that they had dismantled a network of smugglers who had brought a thousand migrants from Algeria to Spain.
“The criminal network was responsible for the illegal entry of more than 1,000 migrants into our country using speedboats chartered from Algeria,” police said in a statement.
The operation, in which Europol took part, led to the arrest of 21 people in the Madrid region, in Andalusia (south), where the boats arrived, and in the Basque Country (north), on the border with France.
The network housed migrants in Spain before organising their transit to other European countries in exchange for sums of up to 20,000 euros, the same source added.
The criminal group had a branch in the Algerian port city of Oran, which was responsible for organising the shipment of migrants on speedboats that were “overloaded” and “without any safety equipment,” the statement added.
The migrants arrived on the Spanish coast “at night and in hard-to-reach areas, far from urban centers,” where they were picked up by members of the criminal group and taken to Madrid.
According to local media, the smuggling of migrants from Algeria to Spain has become a veritable “industry” that generates millions of euros.
A number of political leaders and parties, particularly in the autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Murcia and Almeria, regularly express their concern about the sharp increase in the number of irregular migrants from Algeria.
MN/te/lb/as/APA