An organization that exploited almost 200 immigrants with dependent care dismantled in Palma | Spain

Exhausting weeks with only one day off, working as interns caring for dependent elderly people or doing housework. Without the right to vacations, without health or accident coverage and with just two consecutive hours a day to rest. The more than 185 victims of a criminal organization that, under the umbrella of a fictitious company, took advantage of immigrants in an irregular situation to offer care services to dependent people and cleaning services on the island of Mallorca worked under these conditions. Five people have been arrested accused of alleged crimes of labor exploitation, document falsification and favoring irregular immigration, although the ringleader of the plot, a 30-year-old man of Spanish nationality, remains missing since he learned that he was being investigated a few weeks ago.

This is the company with the largest number of workers in an irregular situation detected in the history of the Balearic Islands, most of them vulnerable women from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Paraguay, who were willing to carry out work in exploitative conditions because they could not find another exit. The investigation, carried out by group I of the Central Unit against Immigration Networks and Documentary Falsities of the Balearic National Police Headquarters, began last July when one of the workers showed up at the foreigners’ office with a false registration certificate from the General Treasury of Social Security. He intended to start the procedures to obtain a residence permit, which put the police on the trail of a network that could be exploiting immigrants in an irregular situation.

As a result of this episode, the investigators managed to identify the ringleader of the plot, a 30-year-old Spanish citizen who was surrounded by several people who were in charge of controlling the employees and carrying out administrative procedures in the company. “This man had worked as a nursing assistant and had personal contacts and some credibility. He informed them that he had created a company, which was later completely fictitious, and some recommended it, especially social workers from hospitals and city councils, because they believed that the activity was legal,” explains the head of the UCRIF group, Juan Anders Lemos. Hoffen, in charge of directing the operation. The main suspect was in charge of recruiting the workers through Facebook groups and through verbal recommendations in immigrant circles in Palma, with special interest in profiles between 30 and 40 years old.

Women were hired as interns to care for elderly and dependent people and to do housework. They worked six days a week, with only two consecutive hours of rest in the same day, without vacations and without insurance. “He instructed them on what to say to the families they worked with and threatened them with expulsion from the country if they reported to the police,” says Lemos Hoffen, who says that the suspect kept more than half of the money from each The client paid for each internal worker, which reached 2,000 euros.

In addition to forcing them to work under abusive conditions, the employer deceived the workers into believing that they had health insurance that he had actually canceled a few days after contracting it. One of the women, who had a work accident and broke a bone in her foot, discovered when she went to the emergency room of a health center that the health insurance was not valid in any way because the contributions had not been paid. Beyond the offer of dependency care services, the businessman had hired several men who posed as qualified physiotherapists, who carried out rehabilitation sessions for people of legal age, with a serious health risk because they did not have the necessary training.

Important income

The company, which was not registered and did not appear in the records, had given itself an image of credibility, with advertising brochures, service and cost tables. She had achieved a very good reputation in the social and health sector and was recommended by hospital workers, senior centers and town councils. “Everything was done for his convenience. She told clients that a single worker could not cover the entire weekend, because she had to have free time, so they would have to hire another of the women and thus earn more money. But the employee, in reality, did not enjoy free time afterward. “I promised them that in a year I would fix their legal situation, but it wasn’t true,” says Lemos Hoffen.

This entire criminal network generated significant benefits for the businessman, with an average monthly income of 200,000 euros, an amount that amounts to six million euros in the two years that the false company has been in operation, according to the results of the police investigation. The agents have located 25 bank accounts in his name in 13 different banks and have verified that he used currency transfer entities to move money and pay his employees. They have also located bank accounts with headquarters in a European capital, with the intention of avoiding paying taxes to the Tax Agency. The currency exchange accounts were opened in a call shop in Palma, where the employees were also forced to put them in their name so as not to be detected by the authorities.

In the searches that the police carried out on November 20, the agents seized a large amount of documentation, as well as computer equipment and mobile terminals that are being analyzed. National Police investigators continue trying to locate the main suspect. The other five people who were arrested, accused of various crimes such as belonging to a criminal organization or favoring illegal immigration, have been released with precautionary measures. Some of them have advanced their intention to collaborate with the investigation, as confirmed by legal sources.