The National Police have arrested 69 people and are investigating another 25. The reason? They set up a network that sold immigration appointments. The arrests have taken place across half of Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Albacete, Alicante, Almería, Vizcaya, Burgos, Cádiz, Córdoba, the Balearic Islands, Marbella, Murcia, Tarragona, Tenerife, and Toledo.
Officers discovered that the organization used a bot to hoard appointments on the official website. The program bypassed security measures and made the system inaccessible to regular users—including you, if you tried to book an appointment. Then, agents and lawyers would resell those appointments to immigrants in need of regularizing their status. The prices: 30 to 200 euros per appointment. And all of this despite the fact that the service is public and free. In short, a full-blown scam.
How the scheme worked
The investigation—coordinated by the UCRIF and led by Valencia’s Court of First Instance No. 8—began following a cybercrime report. In the initial phase, the four ringleaders in Barcelona and Valencia were arrested. More than 200,000 euros, computers, and documents were seized. Those documents made it possible to identify the intermediaries—lawyers and consultants—who paid the ringleaders for the appointments and sold them to the applicants. In a second phase, officers took action in Alicante and Cáceres. There, they seized a computer that was still connected to the illegal network.
Immigrants who couldn’t get an appointment through official channels ended up turning to this network out of desperation. Many are in vulnerable situations, and, unable to find available slots, they agreed to pay. The police make it clear: buying appointments is illegal and can harm your case. So now you know.
Don’t buy appointments on the black market. If you’re having trouble getting an immigration appointment, report it. The authorities have strengthened systems to prevent fraud, but the best protection is not to feed these networks. Take action.
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