Spain busts ring bringing Moroccans in via Romania

MADRID: Spanish police said on Sunday they had broken a ring that had brought in up to 2,500 Moroccan irregular immigrants via Romania, arresting four suspects.

The four were detained in the southeastern Murcia province on charges of belonging to a criminal organisation and facilitating irregular migration, the Guardia Civil said in a statement. The Moroccans entered Europe by plane to Romania, from where they were transported to Spain, with each one charged 3,000 euros ($3,400) for the voyage, it said.

The suspects were alleged to be the ringleaders of the organisation. Their nationalities were not specified.

Spanish authorities believe the ring organised 50 such trips over the past two years, each one composed of between 20 and 50 Moroccans, making for a total of between 1,000 and 2,500 irregular immigrants.

The outfit was alleged to have a “logistics centre” in Romania where it hid the migrants while they awaited their transport to Spain. The Guardia Civil said the operation to bust the ring was conducted with the help of Europol and the European Union´s border patrol agency Frontex.