Awarded Best
ISSUE NO. 1706
15 - 21 March 2018
COSTA BLANCA SOUTH
Newspaper in Spain 2018
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Human traffic
155 held as migrant smugglers busted More than 150 people have been held as police swooped on a Chinese human trafficking gang that smuggled people into the UK. The gang reportedly charged a flat fee of €20,000 in exchange for fake passports plus transport from China via Spain. Most of the arrests took place in Barcelona, where migran t s we r e h i d d e n in rented flats before being flown to Britain and Ireland. While in the Catalan capital their passports were confiscated and replaced with bogus documents printed in China. They were also taught key English phrases commonly used at border control to improve their chances of getting through. Other suspects were held in Alicante, Malaga, La Linea de la Concepcion (Cadiz), Madrid, Ibiza, Aviles (Asturias), Bilbao and Castellon. The majority are Chinese, among them four figureheads who have been charged with membership of a criminal gang, forgery and violation of human rights, plus 151 others connected to the racket. Flight tickets to the UK were bought on the day of travel to avoid suspicion,
Photo credit Policia Nacional
by Matt Ford
FLAT RATE: Individuals were each charged €20,000 for travel to the UK using false passports handed to them in Spain. and the migrants were accompanied by gang members as far as Barcelona’s El Prat airport. It comes after a three-year probe was triggered when officers became aware of an increase in the use of forged Chinese travel documents at the hub. Five people later entered a witness protection scheme in exchange for revealing details of the scheme to detectives. Raids on three properties, two in Santa Coloma de Gramanet and one in
Badalona near Barcelona, led to the four bosses being held. More than €11,000 and 16,000 Chinese Yuan were seized alongside computers, mobile phones, forged passports and two forged Schengen Visa stamps.
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