Spanish police, supported by Europol, have dismantled one of the largest criminal smuggling networks operating in the western Mediterranean, arresting 78 people across Spain and Algeria, including four senior figures at the top of the organisation. The network is accused of trafficking synthetic drugs, weapons, and migrants across the sea between Europe and North Africa, while also carrying out violent robberies, extortion, illegal detentions, and money laundering.
The operation, led by Spanish national police and carried out across 17 locations including Alicante, Almería, Cartagena, and Murcia, seized 18 high-speed "ghost speedboats" valued at €5 million, firearms, ammunition, satellite phones, GPS devices, encrypted communications equipment, 15,000 MDMA pills, and over €25,000 in cash. Authorities also froze bank accounts and seized properties belonging to key suspects. Ghost speedboats — unregistered, high-powered vessels specifically designed to evade radar and police detection — formed the backbone of the network's smuggling operations and are prohibited in Spain.
The network had developed what Europol described as a "dual-flow" operation: synthetic drugs, firearms, and explosives were transported from Spain and Portugal south to Algeria, while the return journeys brought migrants and cannabis resin north to the Spanish mainland and the island of Ibiza. Migrants were charged up to €12,000 per person, with up to 50 people packed onto a single boat. Europol estimates the network smuggled around 2,000 migrants into Spain, generating more than €24 million in profit from people smuggling alone. Investigators believe migrants were subjected to sexual and physical abuse, transported without life jackets or lighting, and held in inhumane conditions on arrival.
The suspects were primarily of Algerian origin and had connections to criminal organisations across France, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Poland. According to investigators, the network's leadership was based in France and Belgium. The group also maintained links to the so-called Mocro Maffia — a North African-origin organised crime network active across Western Europe, including the Netherlands — and to the criminal underworld centred on the French port city of Marseille. The network also functioned as a logistics provider for other criminal groups, offering storage, transport, fuel supply, and surveillance evasion services.
The operation was carried out by a newly established task force under Europol's European Centre against Migrant Smuggling, involving Spanish and French national police, with support from Portuguese police and Polish border guards. The announcement comes shortly after a surge of migrants crossed into Ceuta, the Spanish territory on the northern tip of Morocco, highlighting the continued pressure on Spain's borders and the sophisticated criminal infrastructure that exploits migration routes across the western Mediterranean.