Criminal organisation in Madrid arrested for forged migrant documents

Criminal organisation in Madrid arrested for forged migrant documents. The National Police claim that the criminal network charged an average of 300 euros for each forged document.

Nine of those arrested were members of the criminal network, while the other 20 were clients who bought the false documents from the organisation, located in the provinces of Huelva, Almería, Murcia and Zaragoza. Several members of the organisation had been arrested for similar acts carried out a few years earlier. Specifically, three of those involved had various previous arrests for forgery of documents.

The structure of the network was divided into two different branches, both based in the province of Madrid but with repercussions throughout the national territory. They provided the forged documents to their clients by means of face-to-face appointments if they were near Madrid or by means of postal deliveries or parcel delivery agencies otherwise.

The members of one of the branches of the organisation were people of sub-Saharan origin, nationals of Nigeria, Mali and Ivory Coast, who were in charge of distributing the cards to the migrants. The main leader of the other faction turned out to be a man of Colombian origin who distributed the forged migrant documents to people of South American origin.

It has been estimated that, in the last four years, more than 700 false documents were produced, which means that the profits obtained could exceed 200,000 euros.

The investigation was triggered by the detection of the migrants forged documents presented by the refugees themselves to carry out various formalities, such as registering with the Social Security or identifying themselves to the police and administrative authorities.

The police operation culminated in 29 arrests, of which nine people were arrested in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona for the offences of belonging to a criminal organisation, falsification of documents and encouraging irregular immigration, and 20 of them were arrested in Huelva, Almería, Murcia and Zaragoza. Four searches and raids were carried out in the towns of Alcorcón, Móstoles and Madrid.

A total of 39 forged documents have been seized, 27 of which were migrants cards, eight foreigners’ identification cards, two Guinean passports and two driving licences. Also seized were 3,700 euros in cash, a PVC card printer, 17 mobile phones, two laptops, three electronic tablets and various documents related to the investigation.

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