The National Police has dismantled a criminal organization that introduced Senegalese immigrants to Spain through the Adolfo Suárez-Madrid Barajas airport, where in recent months hundreds of asylum seekers have been overcrowded due to fraudulent use of stopovers. According to investigators, the clandestine immigration network had devised “a sophisticated air route” to illegally introduce migrants into Europe. According to police sources, about 200 migrants passed through the hands of the organization.
The agents have verified that the organization had a manual that explained “in detail” the steps to follow to request asylum in our country. First, the migrants had to move from Senegal to Casablanca (Morocco). Once there, they bought a plane ticket to different countries in South Africa, but they had to stop in Madrid. Citizens of Senegal are not required to obtain a visa to enter Brazil, El Salvador or Bolivia. Nor a transit visa in the capital. Something that will change starting next February 19, as established by the Government.
The modus operandi was simple. After boarding in Casablanca on a flight of the official Moroccan airline – Royal Air Maroc – they tore up their passport to request international protection as supposed minors coming from countries in conflict such as Mali or Ethiopia, when they were really Senegalese adults. For this reason, they were not detained at the airport like the rest of the applicants who overflowed the asylum rooms in December and January, but rather they were transferred to first reception centers in the Community of Madrid.
These first reception centers enjoy an open regime, so once they entered them they left without formalizing their asylum request, as reported by the National Police. The organization had an entire network to collect and transport these people when they left the center, where different people came in vehicles to transport them, in exchange for an economic amount, to different bus stations, airports, or even directly to France, Germany or Belgium.
The fact that the victims of this clandestine immigration network could be minors alerted the Madrid Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office, who entrusted initial investigation efforts to the Madrid Immigration and Border Brigade and the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade. , which demonstrated that in no case would they be minors.
In the operation, which has allowed the criminal organization to be dismantled, a total of twelve people have been arrested in different parts of the Community of Madrid and Alcoy, including the leader of the network at European level. The investigation remains open and more arrests are not ruled out.
