They sold them a dream, took all their money and, when they had nothing left, they abandoned them to their fate in a strange country. All with the promise that many teenagers dream of: succeeding in football like their idols. The National Police, within the framework of the operation New Teamhas dismantled a criminal organization that operated in Elche, Orihuela and Ceuta in which twelve people between 30 and 50 years old have been arrested for crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, against the rights of foreign citizens, abandonment of minors, fraud and against workers’ rights. The detainees have been placed at the disposal of the Investigative Courts on duty in the towns of Orihuela, Elche and Ceuta. The operation remains open and more arrests are not ruled out.
The investigation began when a minor went to a well-known NGO in Elche. The boy was of Colombian origin and requested accommodation and maintenance “given the precarious situation in which he found himself,” the National Police reported in a statement. The minor resided in the Elche town where he had arrived after being captured in his country of origin to supposedly arrive in Spain to play in the Spanish soccer league.
The minor was residing together with other young people of South American origin who had been recruited in Colombia to move to Spain under the promise of a bright sporting future for which they had been offered a supposed contract with which they could regularize their situation in Spain, something that never happened.
The victims, who now number 50, covered the travel expenses and paid the perpetrators the amount of around 2,000 euros each for maintenance and accommodation in the country, an amount that, according to members of the organization, had already consumed a few days after being in Spain, so they required a new amount of money for accommodation and subsistence expenses. The money swindled from all those harmed by this criminal network amounts to 100,000 euros.
According to the police, when the victims no longer had any more money to provide to the network, after having squeezed their families in their country of origin, the organization under investigation ignored the young people. Alone and unattended, the minor who gave rise to this investigation had to go to an NGO to request help.
The organization had extensive experience in the world of sports, and more specifically in football, with a hierarchical structure with a clear distribution of tasks among its members.
Homes in terrible conditions
The organization had recruiters in the countries of origin where, after carrying out a first selection and recruitment of young people, all of them with little or no interest in the football level, they paid the agreed amount to the organization and later other members transported them to Spain. .
In order to gain the trust of the victims, they acted through an alleged footballer representation agency, whose manager and other collaborators were also part of the criminal structure investigated.
Once in Spain, the victims were placed in the care of the team leaders, who, after ensuring that they could not get more money from their victims, proceeded to abandon them. At this time, the young people realized the impossibility of regularizing their situation or carving out a professional future in the Spanish league, so they assumed that they had been the subject of a scam.
Two home searches have been carried out in which numerous documentation and electronic devices have been seized. In addition, it has blocked various banking products. During the searches carried out, unsanitary, overcrowded and poor maintenance conditions were detected in the homes in which the victims were housed in apartments controlled by the organization.
