AREQUIPA, Peru – A human trafficking network that operated with Cuban migrants was dismantled in Spain by the National Police of that European country.
A report of Spanish Radio Television points out that the organization located and transferred migrants from various points in Europe to the Iberian nation.
The authorities found the trafficking network through an operation developed in collaboration with Europol and Eurojust, which left a total of 36 people detained.
Among those detained, currently in provisional prison, four leaders of the trafficking network stand out, whose capture occurred in Malaga and Alicante.
Two of them recruited the migrants, took out the plane tickets and processed the invitation letters for the Cubans to enter Serbia. Meanwhile, the other half organized the land route and provided documentation to get to Spain.
Before the police operation, the group had managed to facilitate the clandestine entry to Spain of some 67 Cubans.
According to police information, the network took Cubans from the island to Serbia by plane and from there transferred them by car to Greece, through North Macedonia. Subsequently, the migrants flew to Spain using false or stolen documentation from Spanish citizens.
With members in several countries, the criminal organization will charge around 10,000 euros from each migrant to take them to Spanish territory.
It was a notice from the German authorities that triggered the investigation. They contacted the National Police to inform them that they had detained a Cuban citizen from Belgrade at one of their airports and to Madrid who was carrying a stolen Spanish ID.
After the incident, investigations exposed the existence of a specialized criminal group that recruited Cuban citizens on the island through a website that posed as a legal travel agency, transported them to Belgrade, usually with a stopover at the German airport in Frankfurt, and then to Greece by land.
The trafficking network had bank accounts in Belgium intended to receive the money and which were opened using false documentation.
In the operation, three home searches were carried out, in Alicante and Malaga, in which more than 7,000 euros in cash and abundant computer material and documentation relevant to the investigation were seized.
