Spain: civil servants involved in a case of trafficking of bodies of Moroccan migrants

The members of this network usually contact the families of the victims through fake profiles on social networks, offering to repatriate the bodies to Morocco or Algeria in exchange for a large sum of money, reports Huffpost. Their modus operandi consists of asking for the coordinates of the missing persons, claiming to want to conduct research, then demanding the payment of an advance to file a complaint and request DNA samples to identify the body.

This network acted with the complicity of people working in public institutions such as the Institute of Forensic Medicine, who provided it with information for the identification of bodies. The leader of the group, of Moroccan origin, as well as the other members of the group, were arrested after a series of searches carried out in Murcia, Cartagena, Almería, Molina de Segura and Jaen.

Many documents, as well as vehicles and nearly 70,000 euros in cash, were seized during these searches. The accused are charged with offenses of disclosure of secrets, violation of respect for the deceased, fraud, belonging to a criminal organization, document forgery, corruption, etc. Two of them have been placed in pre-trial detention, on the orders of the Murcia investigating court.

The head of the imams of Almeria, Abdallah Mhanna, expressed his indignation after learning of the existence of this network, reports Canal Sur. The director of the NGO Almeria Acoge, Juan Miralles, also deplored this situation, recalling having asked the Spanish authorities to provide more resources to the services in charge of the identification and repatriation of deceased migrants in order to allow them to properly fulfill their mission.