Rabat – Spanish national police has a network that smuggled Moroccan migrants from Ceuta to Algeciras, with stolen leisure boats.
The operation recorded 12 people in Algeciras, with five suspects being captured in the preventive detention of the city’s court.
The police also confiscated the six stolen boats used in the smuggling operations.
Spanish media reports cited security sources that unveiled The investigation began in July last July after a boat with two unaccompanied Moroccan minors arrived at the Getares Beach in Algeciras.
The police discovered that the boat had been stolen from a regional relaxation yacht port days earlier.
In further studies, the authorities discovered a larger pattern of boating thefts from South Spanish ports. The ships were later used by smugglers to transport migrants from Ceuta to the mainlandspania before they tasks them.
The network supported on Marina employees to identify suitable boats for theft and avoid security monitoring.
Studies showed that the Moroccan minor network used the Moroccan minors as boat captains and used their limited legal liability, if recorded. These trips occurred under extremely dangerous conditions, whereby the boats were overloaded and reasonable security measures were missing – which endangers the life of migrants.
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The police estimate that the network successfully smuggled 40 Moroccan migrants to Spain and calculated between € 4,000 and € 4,500 per trip and made around 180,000 euros in profits.
In addition to the human smuggling, the network also had a robust process to create fake documents and show a high degree of organization and coordination.
This security operation is part of the joint efforts between Morocco and Spain to stop the river of illegal migration into the European country.
Morocco’s role in migration control was commendable. The country is invested in the containment of irregular migrant rivers by Ceuta and Melilla, which in August 2024 14,648 would prevent illegal migrants from entering the enclaves.
The North African country successful In preventing 48,963 irregular migration attempts and broken 210 criminal networks that were involved in human trafficking until November 2024.
