Gang kidnapping migrants for ransom arrested by Spanish police

On 17 May Spain’s Guardia Civil arrested a gang suspected of kidnapping migrants for ransom as they arrived from Morocco.

Spanish police said the criminals, who included four Moroccans and a Spanish woman, would wait for boats to arrive on the coast of the Campo de Gibraltar, after which they would identify and kidnap their victims.

The gang would initially offer to help the newly arriving migrants find their relatives in Spain, but instead they transported them to a house in the neighbourhood of La Bajadilla de Algeciras and locked them up.

According to a statement from local police, the migrants were then stripped of their mobile phones and personal belongings and interrogated in order to determine how much money could be demanded in ransom from their families in exchange for their safe release.

The gang would then contact their families and ask them to pay anything between €500 and €2,000, depending on the family’s presumed financial circumstances.

The investigation began at the end of August of the year 2017, when the local police learned of the kidnappings of irregular migrants arriving on the Spanish coast.

The police have arrested the three men and a woman from Morocco, who are legal residents in Spain, and a Spanish woman. The five gang members are being held without bail.

The men of the gang were largely responsible for kidnapping the migrants and transporting them to the house in Algeciras, while the women were in charge of the custody and surveillance of the victims.

It is not known how many migrants have been kidnapped by the gang and the police say the operation is ongoing, with more arrests possible.

Photo caption: Spanish coastal guard boat in harbour of Algeciras, Spain, 2 May, 2017

TMP – 15/06/2018