The National Court is investigating an alleged visa forgery plot with its epicenter in the Spanish consulate in Algeria. The National Police arrested early this Friday the number two of this diplomatic representation in the capital of the North African country, Vicente Moreno, and a worker of Algerian nationality, as reported The Objective and EL PAÍS has confirmed it in legal sources. Both were released with precautionary measures hours later.
The head of the Central Court of Instruction number 3, María Tardón, investigates a network that was allegedly dedicated to facilitating visas in exchange for money. The funds obtained were later laundered in Spain. One of the alleged means of laundering funds was the purchase of vehicles, although investigators do not rule out the existence of other mechanisms allegedly used by the plot to reintroduce the funds obtained from the sale of visas into the legal economic circuit.
The arrests were precipitated last Friday when the agents detected that both those under investigation, the vice consul and the Algerian worker, were in Spain. The Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police arrested them both on Friday morning and carried out two entries and searches: one in Sagunto (Valencia) and the second in Torrevieja (Alicante). The two detainees appeared before Judge Tardón by videoconference and that same afternoon they were provisionally released.
As explained by these legal sources, the investigations seek to clarify the alleged fraudulent issuance from the Spanish consulate in Algiers of visas to enter Spain, which allows travel through the 29 signatory countries of the abolition of internal border controls, which includes, in addition to Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Agents from the Central Unit of Illegal Immigration Networks and Documentary Falsities (UCRIF), specialized in combating networks of human trafficking and irregular immigration, as well as members of the Deputy Directorate of Customs Surveillance (DAVA) also participate in the operation.
Sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have limited themselves to confirming to this newspaper that “there is an inspection [del consulado español en Argel] ongoing” and that the department is “waiting for judicial notification to adopt all the appropriate measures provided for in these cases”, in reference to the dismissal of the vice-consul in the Algerian capital.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to seal diplomatic reconciliation with the country four years after the breakup following Pedro Sánchez’s decision to abandon, in March 2022, Spain’s traditional position of neutrality in the Sahara conflict, maintained for 47 years, of autonomy for the former Spanish colony “as the most serious, realistic and credible basis for the resolution of the dispute.”
