Moroccan police dismantle clandestine emigration gang

The Moroccan police have dismantled a gang specializing in organizing clandestine emigration to Europe, Moroccan Al-Alam daily reported Wednesday.

The gang members, who operate in the city of Khemisset (about 80 km southeast of Rabat), recruit candidates for illegal emigration and send them to a ring working in the Moroccan northern city of Tetouan.

Police investigation showed that the candidates to illegal emigration pay the web between $250 and $500 US for transportation to Spain aboard small boats.

A Moroccan court has sentenced lately four persons to eight years in jail for transporting illegal emigrants.

During the past week, the Moroccan Coast Guard has arrested nearly fifty people who were attempting to cross Gibraltar strait aboard a Patera (small and precarious boat).

The Spanish authorities started lately to burn the pateras they seize in the southern shores to prevent their reuse in the transportation of illegal immigrants.