Spanish police have arrested five people accused of charging migrants thousands of pounds to take them from Ceuta to mainland Spain.
An estimated 72,000 people crossed the border between Morocco and Spain’s tiny north African exclave on July 30. Most were returned, but there are still about 8,000 people living in migrant centres or sleeping rough.
The influx caused an multinational diplomatic row, with EU allies criticising Spain over its lax migration policy.
Two days after the incursion, Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, insisted that no migrants could get to the Spanish mainland, which is part of the Schengen area, because they would have to undergo document checks.
However, Spanish police admitted that some migrants have already been smuggled from Ceuta into Europe.
Around 1,800 migrants are sleeping rough on Trampolin Beach while the Spanish authorities work to increase temporary accommodation – REDUAN/EPA/Shutterstock/Shutterstock Editorial
The five alleged traffickers charged migrants up to £7,700 per person to transport them by boat from Ceuta to the Iberian Peninsula, police said on Friday.
Four of those arrested belonged to a trafficking network that housed migrants in homes or garages in Ceuta, before taking them across the Strait of Gibraltar.
“Boat drivers were selected for their experience navigating fast, and their ability to take evasive manoeuvres and dodge police checks,” Spain’s national police said in a statement.
The number of migrants who made the journey with the alleged traffickers was not disclosed.
Two suspects were detained in Ceuta and two in La Línea de la Concepción, a Spanish border town north of Gibraltar.
Credit: Anadolu via Reuters
A fifth suspect was jailed pending trial for allegedly charging seven migrants €8,000 (£6,800) each to transport them in a small boat lacking “minimal safety standards” on the night of Aug 14, police said.
Spain’s Civil Guard said on Thursday that another two men had been arrested in the past week for allegedly smuggling at least a dozen migrants from Ceuta to the Spanish Peninsula.
Tourists fled when a motor launch carrying 62 migrants landed on a secluded beach on Wednesday near La Manga sports club on the Costa Cálida in Murcia.
All the migrants are thought to have been arrested by police and transferred to immigration centres.