On the 13th of this month, agents of the National Police in Ibiza, proceeded to the arrest of three citizens of Algerian origin as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of belonging to a criminal organisation, against the rights of foreign citizens and favouring illegal immigration, when a patera-type boat was rescued by Maritime Rescue with 16 migrants of Algerian origin, all men, except two women, and a baby, when they were adrift about six miles south of Formentera, being transferred to the island of Ibiza.
In the boat type «Patera», number 35 of the arrivals to Ibiza and Formentera so far this year, 16 migrants of Algerian origin were travelling.
Once at the National Police headquarters in Ibiza, the Aliens Brigade took charge of the new arrivals to carry out the procedures for returning them to their country, and the Red Cross carried out an initial triage to check their state of health, all of them presenting a distressing emergency situation, with continuous vomiting due to dizziness, cold, and being completely wet.
Taxi-patera
The «taxi-patera» modality (widely used in the strait area) has been detected in Ibiza and Formentera on several occasions, and the number of migrants arriving in this way has grown, due to the fact that the journey time is shorter, lasting between 6 and 8 hours, while conventional boats can take between 24 and 30 hours and reduce risks, although the price is higher and can amount to the equivalent of 2,500 € per person and journey. Another reason for the growth of this modality is the impunity of the organisations and employers involved in people smuggling, as it is very difficult to identify them and even more difficult to locate and arrest them when they return to their country quickly.
This year, the arrival of four other boats had already been detected on the island of Formentera using this method, as it was found that on several occasions groups of migrants were located, without the boats on which they had come being traced.
Those identified as skippers were placed at the disposal of the Ibiza Examining Magistrate's Court, which ordered two of them to be remanded in custody, without bail, and released the third, imposing precautionary measures of prohibition to leave Spain and regular appearances in the aforementioned court.
The UCRIF group of the Local Police Station of Ibiza continues the investigations aimed at finding out about the existence of criminal groups that organise trips from the coasts of Algeria.