The Civil Guard has dismantled one of the many organizations that try to profit financially from the suffering of migrants. Seven people have been arrested in Barcelona and its metropolitan area for charging foreigners up to 15,000 euros in exchange for facilitating their obtaining a residence permit. The criminal group looked for fictitious de facto couples and prepared false registration documents so that immigrants without papers could request, supposedly with more guarantees of obtaining it, permission to live legally in Spain.
Seven members of the group have been arrested in Barcelona, Castelldefels and Badalona, while another ten are under investigation. The judge investigating the case attributes to them the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, favoring irregular immigration, document falsification, usurpation of marital status and money laundering.
The investigation began at the end of last year, when an increase in the number of common-law couples with suspected irregularities was detected in the province of Barcelona. The group recruited migrants in vulnerable situations and offered them supposed de facto couples as a formula to apply for a residence permit. The detainees falsified the documents or usurped the identity of women residing in Spain.
The organization was also responsible for housing migrants in unhealthy places, including closets and very small spaces where small beds or sofas were installed, according to images distributed by the Civil Guard. The group, maintains the statement released this Sunday, “exposed foreigners in a situation of extreme precariousness.” The objective was to regularize, in exchange for money, the situation of these foreigners both in Spain and in European countries (Germany, France or Belgium), according to the documentation handled by the investigators.
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