Promises of excellent jobs, labor in the fields

Police in the Spanish capital, Madrid, said the operation was carried out against a large but well-organised group that took advantage of the constraints of migrants in the country illegally and exploited them financially in a highly coordinated manner.

According to the police, 43 suspected members of this group were arrested, who extorted millions of euros by promising immigrants a bright future and great jobs in the country of the Iberian Peninsula.

These frauds were carried out by migrants who mostly arrived in Spain by taking an unsafe sea route from Morocco. But these affected migrants also included those who arrived in Spain from other routes and those from Asian and African countries.

Police in Madrid said that members of this group would take up to 3,300 euros each from such migrants, promising them great jobs and signing fake employment contracts to show off. Used to do it.

Later, however, the work that these immigrants were made to do was as agricultural laborers in the fields. The compensation for this labor was also extremely low due to the illegal residence of the migrants in Spain.

Investigations carried out so far have revealed that members of the group were complicit in extorting slave-like labor from their migrant victims, often forcing the foreigners to live in ‘inhumane conditions’.

Preliminary interrogations of detained members of the group also revealed at least seven large Spanish production companies in the agricultural sector that were part of this system of migrant exploitation and financed by the labor of foreigners. They used to take advantage.

Aspen is a major destination for migrants wishing to reach Europe illegally due to its geography. Most such migrants arrive there from Morocco in North Africa by unsafe boats.

But these immigrants are not all Moroccan or African citizens, but they include a large number of citizens of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and other South Asian countries, as well as residents of various countries in the Middle East, who are from North Africa. Routes risk their lives to reach Europe.

According to officials in Madrid, more than 31,000 immigrants from North Africa entered Spain illegally in 2022. Most of them arrived in Spain by boat from Morocco. Spain is also home to a large number of Pakistani immigrants, including those who do not have legal residence permits.