Nails, a hairstyle and, for those who paid between 2,500 and 5,000 euros, a residence permit in Spain.
The National Police has dismantled in Marbella (Málaga) a criminal group that offered migrants to regularize their situation in Spain through registration in a fictitious company, cohabitation marriages and false registrations.
They did it from the back of a beauty salon located in the town of Malaga, which served as an office.
In a double operation promoted from Algeciras and the Costa del Sol, the agents have arrested 39 people throughout the country, six of them belonging to the organization's base.
They are charged with the alleged crimes of false documentation, favoring irregular immigration, benefit fraud and belonging to a criminal group.
All have been brought to justice.
The first steps of the investigation were taken in Algeciras.
The Unit against illegal immigration networks and false documents (UCRIF) was aware of the existence of several foreigners registered in homes in the city of Cadiz without the knowledge of the owners.
The investigators then verified that the lease contracts presented to the city council by the migrants were simulated.
Furthermore, none of the applicants had any kind of roots —either residence, work or family— in Algeciras, but they all did have four things in common.
On the one hand, his previous address was always addresses on the Costa del Sol or Almería.
On the other, they justified their livelihoods, through the same fictitious company where they were registered.
Also,
they shared a representative before the Foreigners Office.
And, finally, they had hired the same manager to do the paperwork.
The process led the investigators to a beauty salon located in Marbella.
There, in a local back room, the office was precisely the manager that all foreigners had in common, who declared to be an expert in Immigration.
He offered migrants the possibility of regularizing their situation in Spain by offering various modalities depending on which requirements of the Law they met.
He did it in exchange for between 2,500 and 5,000 euros, taking advantage "of the situation of vulnerability to profit from these people," according to a statement from the National Police.
Some of them sold the few assets they had or borrowed from their relatives to pay off the debt.
The manager, in addition, told them that they could recover their investment because he could get them a later payment of unemployment benefits,
The hard core of the organization was made up of six people, one of North African origin and the rest Spanish.
The basis of the process was the fictitious registration in a simulated retail company, controlled by the manager.
If necessary, the detainees also promoted cohabitation marriages with national citizens and simulated registration certificates in communities where the documents could be issued in another official language —such as the Basque Country, Catalonia or the Balearic Islands— to make it difficult to verify from the Foreigners Office.
All requests, in addition, were made electronically through different electronic offices.
In order not to raise suspicions, they used two lawyers from the Madrid Bar Association,
Finally, the National Police has arrested 39 people as alleged perpetrators of crimes of false documents, favoring irregular immigration, benefit fraud and belonging to a criminal group.
Six of them in Marbella and the rest in the cities of Barcelona, Gijón, Almería, Madrid, Marbella, Albacete and Granada.
The double operation —called
Fénix
in Algeciras and
Ballesta
in Malaga— has been carried out by the Algeciras UCRIF and the Special Security Operations Group (GOE) of the Malaga Provincial Police Station.
Those arrested have been placed at the disposal of the Investigating Court number three of Algeciras, which is investigating the case.
