- The investigations were initiated by the denunciation of two boys who had moved to Spain when they received in their country of origin, Colombia, the promise to perform a test to play in football teams of the Basque Country
- The detainee publicized through his profile, of a well-known social network, a project called “The house of dreams” in which several young people from Colombia and Mexico play football in Spain
- Mondragon Football Club, Lutxana Sporting and Aretxabaleta Sports Union have also been victims of this deception
The National Police arrests a man in San Sebastián and investigates his partner for the alleged commission of several crimes against the rights of foreign citizens and documentary falsehood, favoring, with financial benefits, the arrival and stay in Spain of young people from Latin America.
The investigation began last April, when two young people of Colombian nationality denounced the situation they were suffering in Spain. The boys explained that they had moved to Euskadi when they received in their country of origin the promise of being able to carry out a test to play in different football teams in the Basque Country. In this regard, they explained that the false promises had been made by a compatriot of theirs who claims to be a representative of talents.
With this information, the researchers discovered that the "cazatalentos" was a Colombian resident in Mondragón who had a project in Spain called "La casa de los suenos" where various boys from mainly Colombia and Mexico played. This project was very actively publicized in a well-known social network where it was presented as an "Agency that works to fulfill the dream of many footballers to play in Spain" and calls itself "Talent Representative".
In addition, they were able to find out that this man acted in collaboration with his romantic partner, also resident in Mondragón, and with another man who worked as a coach in Colombia and helped them to attract boys who wanted to build a prosperous future in professional football.
With these findings and after the appropriate investigations, the investigators of the Operative Group of Foreigners II of San Sebastián, in collaboration with the Local Police of Arrasate-Modragon, located the existence of twenty-five young Colombians, both older and younger, who had traveled from their country of origin pursuing the same promises and for which they had disbursed significant amounts of money.
At the same time, they detected that three Basque football clubs, namely the Mondragón Football Club, Sporting de Lutxana and the Aretxabaleta Sports Union, had also been victims of this deception.
MODU OPERANDI
The modus operandi of the detainee and his partner consisted in giving instructions to the young people regarding payments, entry requirements and conditions to come to Spain, charging them certain amounts of money as a concept of expenses of representation, maintenance and accommodation, as well as for the issuance of the "invitation letters".
With regard to the aforementioned "invitation letters", the researcher asked the young people between 200 or 300 euros for one of the aforementioned football clubs to issue them a document inviting the boys to train and play in the team for 3 months, that is, the maximum period allowed by the situation of stay in Spain.
Thanks to these "invitation letters", the young people could come to believe that there really was a Basque club that was interested in them and that they finally made the decision to move to our country.
Likewise, once the young people were in the Basque Country, they were advised to register to circumvent the current legislation, since being in a period of stay (their purpose is not to reside in the country) there is no need to register in the register of any locality and they were housed in flats rented by them.
In this regard, the agents found that the person under investigation had at least four leases from different homes in the municipality of Arrasate-Mondragón. Each house, they rented it for a price of between 750 and 1100 euros, and later subleased the rooms, housing 10 and 12 children per house, which demonstrates the lucrative potential of this business, taking into account that each young person had to pay between 400 and 500 euros per month for housing and maintenance expenses.
For all these reasons, on 12 June, the suspect was arrested and his partner was charged. The case was heard by the Bergara Guard Investigating Court.
The investigations remain open and the investigators do not rule out new arrests related to the plot.