Spanish police have dismantled a human trafficking network that sold Moroccans as slaves to work on farms in southern Spain.
Spanish police detained 45 Moroccans including eight leaders of the criminal group in Malaga and Almeria provinces, the Spanish interior ministry said on October 22.
The traffickers demanded €3,000 to €8,000 from the would-be immigrants for their passage into Spain, promising to provide them with papers, work contracts, and access to the Spanish social security system.
But once in Spain the illegal immigrants were held as hostages while the traffickers demanded ransoms from their families in Morocco.
The criminal group then "sold them on like slaves to other human traffickers to work in farming and construction for very low wages," the ministry said in a written statement.
Spanish police said the victims were "forced to live in inhumane conditions reaching a point of no return where slavery became a way of life under the constant threat of being handed in to the Spanish authorities."
Most of the immigrants came from Sidi Karem. They told police that they had been promised a idyllic life in Competa, in Malaga province.
The investigation began at the end of August after four victims in "a terrible physical and mental state" went to the Spanish police asking to be sent back to Morocco.
AFP
Spanish police bust human trafficking ring
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