Mossos d’Esquadra agents from the Figueres Investigation Unit and the Girona Criminal Investigation Division, together with the National Police, have arrested 58 people who are accused of crimes of document falsification and violation of the rights of foreign citizens. The investigation has made it possible to dismantle a criminal network, with its epicenter in Figueres, that regularized the administrative situation of immigrants with fraudulent work contracts and fictitious de facto unions.
The fraudulent contracts were of short duration, coinciding with the administration’s deadlines to resolve residency applications. To carry out these procedures, those investigated demanded several payments from people who wanted to regularize their situation, which could vary between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. The researchers do not rule out that these amounts were higher, taking into account the needs of the foreign citizen and their economic possibilities.
The investigation exploitation operation was carried out in two phases during the months of November and December 2023. On November 21, the first phase began, where the first 55 people involved were arrested.
Subsequently, on December 13, the second phase of the operation was carried out in which two entries and searches were carried out, both in the professional office of one of the main people investigated, and in his home, where a major intervention will be carried out. amount of documentation related to the investigation. Three other arrests of people related to criminal activity were also made.
The investigation began following several complaints filed by clients of this agency against those responsible for allegedly fraudulent practices. At this point, a joint investigation team was formalized with the Unit Against Illegal Immigration Networks (UCRIF) of the provincial Immigration and Border Brigade of the National Police of the Girona district.
As the investigation progressed, the joint team of both police forces was able to locate up to 24 judicial proceedings, or complaints that continued to increase the number of victims, in which a total of 95 contracts fraudulently registered with the Security were identified. Social, in the name of the accused or their companies. The employment contracts were false, since the injured parties were unaware of the existence of these documents, nor did they recognize their signature on them.
The agency investigated itself had authorization to activate registrations of alleged workers in the Social Security contribution system, in charge of its portfolio of clients who had a digital signature. The injured parties could be businessmen or self-employed people who had this office to carry out bureaucratic procedures with the administration, or individuals who carried out specific procedures, such as income tax returns. When the injured parties detected this irregular activity and complained to the office, those investigated argued that it was an error on the part of the management and that they would proceed to correct it.
24 fictitious de facto couples between nationals and non-EU citizens were also investigated to facilitate their administrative regularization, registered in the registry of stable de facto couples in Catalonia. Finally, it was found that in 21 of these cases, the non-EU citizens involved requested residency, because they were a relative of a national person, and in 16 regularization was achieved. Among one of those couples investigated was the union between a foreign citizen and one of the main people investigated.
These efforts were carried out with the collaboration of the Government Subdelegation in Girona, the Office of the Department of Labor of the Generalitat in Figueres and the General Treasury of Social Security of Girona.
Within the criminal network there were several roles assigned to those investigated, with those responsible for the management being those who carried out, together with other people of foreign origin, the direction of the criminal activity of the network.
On the one hand, the fictitious employment contracts presented to Social Security were prepared from the agency. It also fraudulently generated the documentation necessary to register a de facto couple in the registry of stable de facto couples in Catalonia of the Department of Justice of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Finally, it was also possible to prove during the investigation the fraudulent registration of addresses to prove the cohabitation between the members of the unmarried couples investigated.
On the other hand, other people, not formally related to the agency, were in charge of recruiting foreign immigrants with their irregular administrative situation, to, in exchange for money, initiate fraudulent regularization procedures.
Finally, the investigators identified a series of people, mainly women, who were the ones who, in collusion with the criminal plot, provided their data to register as de facto partners with foreign citizens, in exchange for a financial amount.
Once a court ruling is available for the prosecution of this case, the documentation obtained illegally may be revoked. It will be up to the judicial authority to request this revocation from the government subdelegation.
