Smuggling crime: Spanish police dismantle international smuggling gang

Madrid. The Spanish police have dismantled a powerful international people-smuggling ring for migrants from North Africa across the Mediterranean. The internationally networked and tightly organized organization of Algerian origin had smuggled more than 2,000 migrants to Spain over the years in at least 64 crossings using high-speed boats.

The police said it had generated revenues of more than €24 million. However, many gangs are involved in the smuggling business and drug trafficking in the Mediterranean in changing alliances that reorganize themselves. Although migration numbers have fallen sharply, the UN refugee agency UNHCR has recorded more than 12,000 migrants who arrived in Spain via the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year.

A total of 78 people, including four of the ringleaders of the network and a so-called hawala banker for cashless financial transactions, were arrested, the police said. The investigations that began in 2023 were also carried out by Europol officers and the police forces of Poland, Portugal and France, where the gang, operating from Spain, also had bases, as well as in Italy.