Simon Hunter
A CHINESE mafia is suspected to have made profits of a million euros by trafficking hundreds of their fellow countrymen into Spain, only to then send them to Britain via Gibraltar using fake documents.
According to the Policia Nacional, which has made 14 arrests in the case, the arrivals were allegedly hidden in appalling conditions in tiny spaces once they had arrived in La Linea de la Concepcion, an area of Spain located next to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.
The investigation began when the authorities detected a constant flow of Chinese arrivals in La Linea, according to a report from news agency Efe.
The mafia is reported to have established infrastructure for hiding the Chinese nationals for weeks at a time, until they could enter Gibraltar using fake documents.
The migrants were confined to tiny rooms and were not permitted to move around the rest of the properties they were being held in.
The gang is thought by the Spanish authorities to have been using fake passports, visas and stamps to get the migrants into Gibraltar, with contacts in Turkey that were producing these documents.
They could then travel to the United Kingdom using the same bogus papers.
What’s more, the organisation was allegedly making use of genuine travel documents from Chinese nationals, in cases where the original person had a physical similarity to the would-be migrant.
The gang is also suspected of drug trafficking, boosting its profits thanks to the distribution and sale of synthetic narcotics such as ketamine and MDMA.
