Spain dismantles people-smuggling network

MADRID, SPAIN (AFP) - Spanish police on Friday said they had broken up a people-smuggling ring that brought more than 1,000 Algerian and Syrian migrants to Spain before relocating them elsewhere in Europe.

Twenty-one people were arrested in the operation involving Europol in the Madrid region, Andalusia and the Basque country.

Migrants paid up to 20,000 euros ($21,600) to be brought to Spain and housed there before their transfer to other parts of the continent, police said.

The criminal network was responsible for "the illegal entry into our country, thanks to fast boats chartered from Algeria" carrying more than 750 Syrian migrants and more than 250 Algerians, police said in a statement.

The migrants left from the Algerian port city of Oran in boats that were often overcrowded and without any safety materials, the statement said.

The migrants arrived on Spanish shores "at night and in areas that are difficult to access and far from urban centres".

The network used numerous apartments to house the migrants in "unsanitary conditions", police said.

Migrants were then given passports and plane or train tickets to facilitate their move to other countries.

The criminal network could have made up to 1.5 million euros.