Migrant boat in Formentera

There were three more boats on Saturday.

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma14/08/2021 15:56
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The National Police have arrested three "skippers" of migrant boats. They belong to a criminal organisation in the northeast of Algeria and have been charged with facilitating illegal immigration, crimes against the rights of foreign citizens, and belonging to a criminal organisation.

The organisation has fixers, the ones who offer trips by boat to Spain for the equivalent of some 1,000 euros. Their selling is in the likes of cafés and their targets are usually young people. Then there are the ones who are responsible for the supplies - the boat, the fuel, a GPS device. They are usually the skippers of the boats.

A police investigation started on August 1 after 21 migrants were rescued and then detained. They had been at sea for more than 40 hours - the journey should normally take half this length of time. The police ascertained that two of the 21 were part of a criminal organisation involved with the transport of migrants.

On July 31, a boat with seventeen migrants had been intercepted. The police found that one of them was also a skipper and a member of the same criminal gang. Another one had previously been in Spain and had committed robberies in Alicante.

On Saturday, 15 migrants were intercepted off Cabrera and 14 more off Formentera. A further 17 were detained after their boat arrived in Portals Vells.