Albacete. The delegate of the Government of Spain in Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolón, reported this Wednesday at a press conference, together with the chief colonel of the Civil Guard Command of Albacete, Jesús Manuel Rodrigo, of an operation of the Benemérita that has allowed to dismantle a criminal organization that practiced amaños in contingents of foreign people with subsequent labor exploitation and that has resulted in the arrest of 13 people.
The dismantled organization was dedicated to the promotion of irregular immigration through recruitment procedures at source, as well as labor exploitation, falsification of commercial documents, scams and fraud to insurance companies and in public subsidies.
With the dismantling of this criminal organization, the Civil Guard has verified the alleged collection of illegal commissions to migrant contingent workers from Senegal and Morocco and their subsequent exploitation in an agricultural company in Hellín (Albacete), in addition to other activities that covered both labor exploitation and various fraud in subsidies and agricultural insurance.
“A criminal gang that took advantage of the situation of vulnerability, lack of knowledge of the language and the illusions of people who came to Spain deceived in search of a better life has been disbanded,” said the delegate of the Government, who added that not only did the victims squander the few resources they had, “once here they were treated without any humanity and forced to work and stay in deplorable conditions.”
Milagros Tolón has congratulated the Civil Guard for this operation “that persecutes those who treat human beings as a business or as a commodity”, a congratulation that has extended to the Subdelegation of the Government, Labor Inspection, Social Security and members of the UGT union who have collaborated in clarifying the facts and attending to the victims by providing them with better working and housing conditions.
GECCO
Milagros Tolón explained that the plot used an irregular application of the Collective Management of Contracts in Origin (GECCO). This is a temporary residence and work authorization system that is granted to foreign citizens who do not reside in Spain for seasonal activities, with a maximum duration of nine months. The entrepreneur assumes all the costs of transport, accommodation, maintenance and health care, and therefore can apply for different aids or subsidies from the State.
“The organization used this tool to promise housing, work and administrative regularization of the people they recruited in the countries of origin,” explained the delegate of the Government, who pointed out that the affected people have been distributed to other companies that comply with the legal conditions of the system of contracting in origin.
Rimeras Inquiries
The colonel of the Civil Guard, Jesús Manuel Rodrigo, explained that the researchers detected indications of possible irregularities in the management of the GECCO of an agricultural company and the first inquiries resulted in the possibility that the selection process in Senegal and Morocco was rigged and that the selected ones had paid between 4,000 and 6,000 €.
Once here if the person did not want to fulfill the contract or not return to his country, he became an irregular immigrant and the organization offered him housing and precarious agricultural work and even administrative regularization, charging between 4,000 and 12,000€, in a process that takes advantage of the legality to introduce people illegally, having detected more than 300 possible cases in the last 3 years.
For those who did want to work, the labor and vital exploitation began, since the organization took advantage of its extreme situation of vulnerability to force them to strenuous working days and apply multiple illegal deductions from their payroll, leaving the salary at barely 200 euros per month. Likewise, they were forced to sign documents completely ignoring their content and even to hire banking or telephone services in order to obtain commissions.
On the other hand, the organization also did business with the accommodation of these contingents, renting hotel facilities or large farms with high accommodation capacity, isolated and in disuse, altering contracts to inflate prices in order to obtain greater public subsidies.
The criminal organization had a marked multi-criminal character and had a broad structure with differentiated functions, with legal advice, captors in Senegal and Morocco and managers of the contingents in Spain, while the leaders also acted as “facilitators” in those countries through an unblemished reputation before the public authorities.
Records and effects intervened
In the first phase of this police operation, three searches have been carried out in the town of Hellín (Albacete), and another in Alhama de Murcia (Murcia), where abundant documentation, computer and technological material, as well as financial products have been seized, among which the blocking of 15 bank accounts stands out.
Labor exploitation
In a second phase of the operation, the Civil Guard and the Provincial Labour and Social Security Inspectorate of Albacete carried out a joint inspection both in the company and in the lodgings, which revealed clear indications of a very serious labor exploitation and violation of all the basic rights of any worker.
During the inspection and in the interviews with the immigrants, it was possible to observe the undue charges, isolation and the terrible and even unhealthy living conditions in the lodgings, which even reached a lack of food.
After the Government Subdelegation in Albacete was informed of this situation, it established an urgent procedure to meet its basic needs in which the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency for the promotion of migration that collaborates with the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, became involved.
In the subsequent phases of the operation, contracts and files of rooting for irregular immigrants in different provinces are investigated in collaboration with the Subdelegation of the Government of Albacete. In the same way and with the help of the Provincial Labour and Social Security Inspectorate, fraudulent contracts are investigated for people in an irregular situation in Spain.
On the other hand, the collaboration of the Government Subdelegation and the Provincial Labour and Social Security Inspectorate of Albacete has been of vital importance. Likewise, there have also been cultural intermediaries of workers’ unions in the province of Albacete, as is the case, among others, of UGT.
Instructed inquiries
The police investigations conducted by the Civil Guard, together with the persons arrested, have been placed at the disposal of Examining Court No. 3 in the town of Hellín in Alicante, which has centralized the proceedings.
The Government’s deputy delegate in Albacete, Miguel Juan Espinosa, and Albacete Civil Guard Lieutenant Colonel Marcos Gómez were also present at the press conference.