The Granada Law Courts have found 14 members of a gang guilty of smuggling undocumented immigrants from Morocco into the country during 2019 and 2020.

The Modus Operandi was to use bona-fide residency permits belonging to other Moroccan citizens living in Spain, whose appearance was similiar to the person using it to illegally enter the country. This ceding of an official document was done for financial gain.

All fourteen of those arrested are Moroccans living legally in Motril and Torrenueva Costa. They looked for relatives or people within their circle of acquaintences and ‘sold’ their passports or residency passports to the smugglers in order to get them into Spain.

These documents were taken to Morocco and handed over in exchange for a large quantity of money to the ‘hopeful,’ for between 14,000 and 20,000 euros (this included passage to Spain)

Once the illegal immigrants passed the customs controls at the borders successfully, the ID docs were returned to their rightful owners, who could repeat the process.

Not all the people who entered Spain under false IDs were men, as some women were amongst them.

At the trial the accused to admitted the charges against them, accepting prison sentences of two years imprisonment.

Editorial comment: why did they not have their legal status here annulled and expelled?

(News: Motril/Torrenueva Costa, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords: Bona-fide IDs, Residency Permits, Physical Likeness, Illegal Immigrants, Border Controls

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