The National Police has dismantled a complex criminal network accused of dedicating itself to obtaining residence permits for foreigners through marriages of convenience between Spanish and non-EU citizens, especially Moroccans and Algerians, arranged in the Santa Pola Justice of the Peace. The network, whose alleged "brain" was a lawyer from Elche, had been operating since 2017 in Alicante and Murcia.

The investigation has made it possible to arrest 129 people and detect 72 allegedly illegal links that gave rise to 51 community family residence permits. For these fraudulent procedures, the spouses paid up to 10,000 euros, according to the Police.

The alleged ringleader allegedly "meticulously" instructed the contracting parties for marriage interviews. The 129 detainees, 66 men and 63 women, of various nationalities and between the ages of 23 and 71, have gone to court on charges of crimes against the rights of foreign citizens, false documents, false testimony and belonging to criminal group.

The epicenter of the network was in Elche, from where the investigators learned that a lawyer operated, who, through her agency, had allegedly designed a complex criminal network in which different people with different functions participated.

Through the collaboration of "false witnesses", as the last step of participants in the plan, the lawyer herself meticulously instructed the contracting parties and witnesses, in the different phases of the entire process.

Thus, he prepared them about the version that they had to hold to circumvent the different administrations and warned them that, in addition to the primary requirement of registering in the locality to start the marriage file, they had to create a version of their supposed affective relationship so that it would not be detected. fraud in marriage interviews.

This is how, allegedly, this lawyer hatched this plan with the participation of a large group of collaborators in the plot who acted in exchange for financial remuneration.