
The National Police have arrested eight people in Cartagena linked to a criminal organisation dedicated to the trafficking of human beings from the North African coast to Spain, and apparently, according to what the agents were able to find out, with ramifications in the world of drug trafficking.
The network regularly used boats that did not have any security measures; the transfers to the east coast of the peninsula were carried out in subhuman conditions, and for an exorbitant price; the organisation charged an amount of around 2,000 euros for a trip, in which the migrants ran a serious risk to their lives.
During this operation, the National Police have acted in an assistance and operational manner on 61 migrants. All of them have arrived in Spain by the hand of this criminal organisation in seven different boats.
On this occasion, the agents of the Cartagena Police Station seized a vessel different to the one used by this type of organisation to facilitate irregular immigration. A 10-metre long, 300 hp boat has been recovered and it has been discovered, after an international investigation with different European police forces, that it was stolen in France in 2021; that it is valued at more than 200,000 euros; and that it could be linked to the world of drug trafficking, possibly to the passage of drugs from the African continent to Spain.
It has been an operation by the National Police that began as assistance, collecting and assisting migrants arriving on the coast of Cartagena, at the hands of a network dedicated to human trafficking, and which ended with the arrest of eight people linked not only to human trafficking, but also to drug trafficking.
The detainees, seven Moroccans and one Algerian, aged between 21 and 47, have been brought before the courts for offences related to the facilitation of illegal immigration, human trafficking and for the theft of the boat in France.