MADRID: Police have broken up two gangs suspected of smuggling minors from Morocco into Spain on jet skis, boats or hidden inside trucks, charging thousands of euros for the crossing, Spanish police and Europol said Friday.
One gang allegedly charged about €2,000 ($2,300) to smuggle a minor by boat from Morocco, a price that would rise to up to €8,000 if weather conditions were bad, Spanish police said in a statement.
The group charged €5,000 to bring minors across on a jet ski and €2,500 hidden inside trucks on ferries. It is suspected of having smuggled over 100 migrants into Spain from Morocco.
Spanish police said they had broken up the group with the arrest of 22 people across the country, including three employees of a youth detention center in the northern region of Asturias suspected of helping the minors get documents to be able to live in Spain legally.
The authorities said they began their investigation after detecting a significant rise in the arrival of unaccompanied minors from Morocco at this youth detention center, who were all mainly from the same area near the Sahara desert.
During a second phase police broke up another gang linked to the first group which smuggled minors from Morocco to Spain by boat, but which also kidnapped minors who were brought in by rival groups and held them for ransom in forests or safe houses in the southern province of Cadiz.
“The criminal gang collected money by extorting the minors’ families in Morocco, sometimes using violence and threats, until they paid a ransom of €500 to release the children,” Europol, which worked with Spanish police on the operation, said in a statement.
Spanish police said they had smashed this second group with the arrest of six of its members.
The Strait of Gibraltar separates Spain and Morocco by around just 15 kilometers (nine miles) — a ferry ride between the two continents takes roughly 40 minutes — making it one of the key smuggling routes for illegal immigrants crossing into Europe.
Spain is the third busiest gateway for migrants arriving in Europe, still far behind Italy but catching up fast with Greece.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 22,400 people arrived in Spain by sea last year, nearly triple the number for 2016. Some 223 people died along the way.
Police smash rings that smuggled Moroccan minors into Spain
Police smash rings that smuggled Moroccan minors into Spain
- One gang allegedly charged about €2,000 to smuggle a minor by boat from Morocco, a price that would rise to up to €8,000 if weather conditions were bad.
- The group charged €5,000 to bring minors across on a jet ski and €2,500 hidden inside trucks on ferries. It is suspected of having smuggled over 100 migrants into Spain from Morocco.
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
