Spanish authorities have dismantled a Chinese mafia network responsible for trafficking migrants from Cadiz to the UK. The operation involved cramming migrants into a small house for
weeks before their transfer, and resulted in the arrest of 14 individuals.
The arrests were made for charges including trafficking more than 250 migrants, falsifying documents, and smuggling drugs. According to reports from Spanish news outlet El Mundo, the criminal organization facilitated the illegal entry of Chinese nationals into Spain through both air and land routes, using forged documents.
The investigation began when Spanish police noticed a continuous flow of Chinese migrants in La Linea de la Concepcion, a municipality of Cadiz, Spain. These migrants were reportedly attempting to reach Gibraltar with the intention of eventually reaching the UK.
A video released by Spanish police during a raid on the property where the migrants were housed reveals small, cramped, and dark rooms. The migrants were kept in these conditions for weeks, under what has been described as terrible unsanitary conditions. They were also forbidden from leaving the overcrowded building.
The video footage shows multiple suitcases and personal belongings scattered around the rooms, indicating that several people had been living there. Authorities also discovered evidence of falsified documents, including passports, visas, and stamps from Schengen countries, used to facilitate the smuggling of migrants into Europe.
In addition to human trafficking, the organized crime network was found to be involved in selling and distributing synthetic drugs such as ketamine and MDMA, earning them an estimated total of around one million euros.
This is not the first instance of Spanish police cracking down on Chinese-led human trafficking operations. In 2018, authorities arrested 155 individuals and dismantled an international Chinese human trafficking gang involved in smuggling people into Britain and Ireland. The gang charged migrants a flat fee of 20,000 euros each for facilitating their journey with fake passports. Photo by Dickelbers, Wikimedia commons.