Ceuta migration crisis
They had paid 6,000 euros for the documents, although the National Police also link this to the rise in reports of theft or loss of national identity cards
Iñigo Goñi Davó
Madrid
The National Police have arrested 40 foreign nationals in Ceuta who were attempting to travel to Spain's mainland using other people's identity documents ... on ferries bound for Algeciras. The police have also arrested five people for supplying the documents, which they were selling to the migrants for up to 6,000 euros.
The investigation began at the Port of Ceuta, when police carrying out identity checks identified several passengers whose features did not match those in the photographs on the identity documents they had presented.
Following the necessary checks, the police determined that the identity cards they were carrying did not belong to them and that they were attempting to use them to enter the mainland. The detainees were exchanging the same documents among themselves for different journeys.
The police have linked the increasingly frequent appearance of third-party documentation to the rise in the theft or loss of identity documents, mostly concerning citizens of countries within the EU.
The repeated use of the same documents has made it possible to identify evidence of the "possible" existence of organised criminal networks involved in smuggling irregular migrants to mainland Spain.