Five avoid prison in cross-border migrant trafficking case 

Five people accused of trafficking migrants from Morocco into Spain via Gibraltar airport were sentenced by a court in Algeciras on Monday but received short jail terms that, in practice, mean they will not serve time in prison. 

The five, who include a Gibraltarian family of Moroccan origin, were arrested in 2019 after a cross-border law enforcement operation initiated in late 2018. 

Spanish prosecutors had initially sought jail terms of eight years for one of the accused, six years for another and four years’ each for the remaining three. 

But on Monday, just before the trial was set to commence, the defendants accepted prison sentences of two years in the case of two of the accused and one year for each of the remaining three.  

None had previous convictions and under Spanish law, the sentences are not long enough to require entry into prison and are, in effect, suspended. 

The court decision brought to a close an operation that involved the Royal Gibraltar Police and the Policia Nacional, with additional assistance provided by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation [Europol]. 

The operation involved months of surveillance both here and in Spain, including the interception by Spanish law enforcement of phones used by three of the accused. 

It led to numerous arrests over many months, mostly in Spain but including three people in Gibraltar who were later extradited to Spain. Among those three were two of the people sentenced on Monday. 

They were accused of belonging to an organisation that used false information to secure short-term tourist visas for the UK which permitted travel into Gibraltar but did not allow entry into Spain or the Schengen area. 

According to prosecutors, the Moroccan migrants arrived in Gibraltar and were then taken across the border in cars when immigration controls were minimal. 

The migrants were first put up in La Linea and later taken to nearby bus or train stations for onward travel. 

Prosecutors presented the Algeciras court with details of 36 surveillance operations conducted between February and September 2019, in which the five people sentenced on Monday were said to have played different roles taking migrants from Gibraltar into Spain. 

The prosecutors added there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the case against several other people arrested during the investigation, or to prove initial suspicions of involvement in tobacco smuggling.