The Police have dismantled the network that blocked the “online” appointment system for immigration procedures with a computer program with which they were made with them to sell them despite being a free public service, in an operation with 69 detainees and 25 investigated , including lawyers and managers.

The 69 arrests have been carried out in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Albacete, Alicante, Almería, Vizcaya, Burgos, Cádiz, Córdoba, the Balearic Islands, Marbella (Málaga), Murcia, Tarragona, Tenerife and Toledo for alleged crimes of belonging to an organization criminal and computer damage, and there are also 25 investigated in the provinces of Madrid and Cádiz, the National Police has reported.

The network used a bot, a computer program to carry out repetitive and automated tasks, to obtain personal online appointments, capable of circumventing the security measures of the official website intended for their request.

Foreign citizens interested in requesting appointments were often forced to contact the owners or intermediaries of the bots in exchange for an economic consideration that ranged between 30 and 200 euros.

The organization’s leaders instructed intermediaries, including lawyers, managers, consultants, and other recruiters, how to use a virtual private network connection to access a larger number of appointments.

The intermediaries received large amounts of money by way of income from the sale of immigration appointments from people who intended to apply for asylum who had no other option than to resort to paying to obtain them since many were in a situation of great vulnerability. and despair.

The investigation, coordinated by agents of the Central Unit of Illegal Immigration Networks and Document Falsities (UCRIF) of the National Police, is directed by the Investigating Court number 8 of Valencia.

A report by agents specialized in cybercrime made it possible to unblock a series of investigations carried out by various provincial Immigration Brigades of the National Police, related to the existing problems in accessing the appointment request system by foreign citizens who are in Spain.

The investigations led to a network that used a computer bot based on carrying out repetitive, predefined and automated tasks, with which it obtained practically all the available personal appointments, essential to present mandatory immigration procedures throughout the national territory.

As a consequence, the system was inaccessible to users, thus interrupting normal access to a free public service provided by the National Police, which is exclusively competent for carrying out immigration procedures in Spain.

At the beginning of the investigation, various statements were taken, economic analysis of the assets of companies and other inquiries that concluded with a first phase of the operation in which the four main members of the organization in Barcelona and Valencia were arrested and a large amount of computer effects, various documentation and more than 200,000 euros.

After these first arrests, an economic investigation was carried out on the main individuals under investigation and on the company used to provide rental services for the bot for the sale of immigration appointments, which, together with the analysis of the seized documentation, made it possible to detect the people who acted as intermediaries in collusion with the detainees.

The investigations also made it possible to locate a series of commercial contracts between the intermediaries and the main ones investigated for the provision of “online” bot services.

The intermediaries, among which are lawyers, managers, advisers and other recruiters with whom the aforementioned company worked, were aware of the computer damage against the official dating website and aware of the corresponding damage caused to foreigners.

In a second phase, developed in the provinces of Alicante and Cáceres, two people responsible for obtaining massive citations were identified. In a search in Alicante, a computer was intervened that was turned on with several open browser windows connected to the foreigners dating page.

Finally, the investigation has culminated with the detainees and investigated referred to in different provinces.