Spain: Authorities dismantle ring exploiting irregular migrants, mostly Moroccans

Spanish police have arrested 43 people in the south of the country, suspected of belonging to a criminal ring that exploited illegal migrants working in the agricultural sector, mostly from Morocco, to whom they sold fake employment contracts at exorbitant price.

“National police officers arrested 43 people in the province of Malaga and dismantled a criminal group allegedly engaged in labor exploitation and fraudulent regularization of migrants,” the police said in a statement.

The victims were “mostly Moroccan citizens” and that the detainees were “of different nationalities,” Spanish police said without giving any further details on the culprits’ nationalities.
The victims “were mostly Moroccan citizens” and the individuals arrested were bearing “different nationalities”, indicated the Spanish police, without giving any further details on the culprits’ nationalities.

According to the Spanish police, the network has a long history of preying on helpless migrants who would pay as much as €3,000 for a fake Spanish employment contract.

At least seven agricultural companies are involved in the scheme, which aims to illegally employ these migrants, who, authorities say, have been forced to work and “accommodated in inhumane conditions in the culprits’ houses.”

Spain is one of the main gateways for African immigration to Europe. In 2022, some 31,219 migrants entered the country illegally, a figure that is however 25.6% lower than the previous year.

Moroccans represent the largest community of foreign origin legally settled in Spain, with nearly 800,000 souls, followed by the Romanian, British and Colombian communities, according to June 2022 data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

“Migrant workers are at greater risk of finding themselves in a forced labor situation than other workers,” the International Labor Organization said in a report published in September.