In a major raid on Tenerife, the Policía Nacional arrested 19 members of a criminal organisation. Investigators had been monitoring the group. It is alleged that they arranged for migrants from the Maghreb states to enter the country through fictitious partnerships with Spanish women who held residence permits.
The investigation stretched over several months and involved a number of phases. During the second phase of the investigation, known as „Vínculo II“, various law enforcement operations took place in the first half of the year in Jaén, Málaga, Tenerife and Melilla. The police accuse those arrested of document forgery and facilitating illegal immigration.
According to investigators, the scheme involved notaries in Barcelona. There, the organisation had foreign men registered as the registered partners of Spanish women. According to the investigation, there had previously been neither a relationship nor any contact between them. The Moroccan nationals were subsequently granted a residence permit as family members. This entitles them to reside in Spain for five years. A work permit is also attached to it.
Spain: Suspicious registered addresses of migrants put investigators on the trail
Based on the current state of the investigation, the network charged up to 12,000 euros per person for entry into Spain and for forged documents. The organisers are said to have earned more than 30 million euros in this way. The police had already arrested 46 people during the initial phase of the investigation.
The officers first became aware of the network due to suspicious registered addresses in a small town in the province of Jaén. In early February 2025, the police’s Immigration and Borders Department in that town identified irregularities in several applications for residence permits on exceptional grounds. The relevant partnerships had been registered in Catalonia, yet the applicants were registered as residing in Torredonjimeno.
Spain intends to revoke fraudulently obtained residence permits
The organisation operated from Barcelona, Melilla, Málaga and Tenerife. Roles within the network were apparently clearly defined. At the top were Spanish and Moroccan leaders who planned the operations, co-ordinated the group’s members and retained the lion’s share of the proceeds.
Recruiters sought out Spanish women, particularly in the province of Málaga, for sham marriages and organised their journeys to Barcelona. Other members procured forged documents. Meanwhile, money couriers passed on the proceeds.
Following the arrest of the 19 individuals, the Immigration and Borders Department in Jaén requested that the immigration authorities in the relevant provinces revoke all residence permits obtained in this way. It also asked the tax authorities to withdraw social security benefits.
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