The Guardia Civil, in the framework of the Flixita operation, has arrested 19 people from a criminal network dedicated to promoting irregular immigration by means of fast routes in pateras taxi from North Africa to the Almeria coast.
This criminal group charged up to 5,000 euros to each migrant for irregular transfers in boats in which between 10 and 15 people could travel each way. Those investigated took advantage of the transfers to send objects stolen in our country, mainly mobile phones, and to traffic drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine or amphetamine, from Spain to Algeria where this type of narcotics are scarce, obtaining a higher economic profit.
On many occasions, they would synchronise several simultaneous departures of fast boats in order to overwhelm the work of the Guardia Civil and make their interception more difficult.
The agents detected this criminal network through the internet, where they discovered a series of publications and offers related to organised trips on patera boats in which they offered migrants in a vulnerable situation their rapid entry into Spain through unauthorised border points on the Almeria coastline.
The criminal organisation was structured in three groups: some people in charge of logistical tasks, management of boats and transfers of migrants and skippers, others with the role of skipper to carry out the sea crossings and the last people established at a higher level as organisers of these transfers.
Those now arrested had established their home port in Almería, where they kept the boats and from where they launched the trips to pick up the migrants on the Algerian coast and bring them to our country. Once the migrants were unloaded at various points along the Almeria coast, the boats were stored until new crossings were organised or they were even able to undertake a new round trip on the same day in order to make their economic profits even more profitable.
Shipments of stolen goods and drugs from Spain to Algeria
This operation includes a new modus operandi detected by the Guardia Civil agents: taking advantage of the boats’ journey to send objects stolen in our country together with cocaine, methamphetamine and amphetamine from Spain to Algeria.
The stolen objects sent from Spain were mainly mobile phones, previously stolen in our country, in order to be sold in Algerian territory at a price much lower than the Spanish market.
Serious risk to the migrants’ lives
The journeys put the lives of the migrants at serious risk due to the use of boats, many of which were in poor condition and unsuitable for sea crossings on the high seas.
Among the journeys, those investigated included several shipwrecks, including one in October in which two migrants died and whose bodies were found a few days later off Cabo de Gata.
19 arrested in seven searches
In the course of this operation, 19 people have been arrested in different locations in Almería and Tarragona. A total of seven house searches and two inspections were carried out on agricultural estates in the Níjar countryside.
In these searches, 17 boats, two vehicles, more than 48,000 euros in cash, 90,000 ecstasy pills, more than 600 grams of high purity cocaine and mobile devices belonging to those under investigation and to third parties who were victims of robberies were seized.
All the objects seized along with the detainees have been placed at the disposal of the courts, with 16 of them being remanded in prison. All of them are charged with crimes against the rights of foreign citizens, against public health, against property and membership of a criminal group, as well as two counts of reckless homicide against one of them.
The investigations have been carried out under the direction of the head of the Court of Instruction number 4 of Almeria and the Delegate Prosecutor for Foreigners of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Provincial Court of Almeria, by the Information Group of the Civil Guard of Almeria in coordination with the Special Central Unit No. 3 of the Information Headquarters and the Information Group of Tarragona. The Guardia Civil’s Maritime Service also provided support.