The unscrupulous nature behind many tragedies in the Mediterranean has once again come to light. Two weeks ago, the National Police in Alicante arrested the skipper of a patera that was intercepted off the coast of Calp by Maritime Rescue. This individual, who has been remanded in custody after appearing before a judge, had an outstanding warrant for robbery in Murcia. 17 migrants were traveling in this precarious vessel.
All the migrants on the patera in Calp were Algerian males, except for one from Morocco. They paid the equivalent of about 4,500 euros to make the journey from Algeria, which demonstrates the highly lucrative nature of these trips: people dreaming of a better life and escaping countries plagued by misery must face exorbitant costs for perilous journeys.
Among the migrants rescued by Maritime Rescue in Calp were four minors. After being transferred to the Temporary Foreigner Care Center (CATE) in the port of Alicante, they were initially attended to by Red Cross personnel. Two of them required medical assistance for burns, and one was even transferred to a hospital for these injuries.
The alleged patera skipper is a 36-year-old Algerian man who was apprehended by agents from Group III of the Unit against Immigration Networks and Document Forgeries (UCRIF) of the National Police of Alicante. This migrant appeared before a judge last Friday in Alicante, and the duty court ordered his imprisonment for crimes of facilitating irregular immigration and belonging to a criminal organization, as well as for a warrant from a Murcia court that had been seeking him since last November for robbery. UCRIF investigators provided the testimony of one of the patera migrants, who testified as a protected witness and identified the person responsible for piloting the boat from Algeria.
Sources close to the police investigation have explained that the detained skipper likely combined his illegal activity with an immigration network between Algeria and Spain with the commission of crimes during his stay on the peninsula. Furthermore, this detainee has police records under multiple identities, and Germany and Belgium had prohibited his entry into the Schengen area, a free-movement zone covering 29 European countries.
Upon identifying the 18 occupants of the patera, the Police also discovered, thanks to fingerprints, that another crew member, a 20-year-old Algerian man, had an active arrest and appearance warrant from a Bilbao court. Additionally, another migrant had a previous arrest in Ceuta, but for clandestine entry into Spanish territory.
The patera in which the 17 migrants and the now-detained alleged skipper were traveling was a seven-meter-long inflatable boat with a 200 hp engine. They departed after midnight on the 9th from Tipasa and 16 hours later were located and assisted by Maritime Rescue in Calp.
