SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, December 29. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The National Police has arrested ten owners of four cayucos that arrived at the ports of Los Cristianos and La Restinga during the first fortnight of December as possible perpetrators of the crime of favoring clandestine immigration. Three of them have also been arrested for alleged responsibility for the crimes of homicide and injuries due to serious recklessness.
The ten detainees, after being heard in police stations, were placed at the disposal of the competent judicial authority, which ordered their entry into preventive detention.
Throughout this month of December, four boats from Mauritania, with a total of 261 people of different nationalities, arrived at the ports of the island of Tenerife and El Hierro.
The agents of the Immigration and Borders area stationed on the island of El Hierro, both from the Provincial Police Station of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and from the central bodies of the General Directorate of the Police, learned through the testimonies of the migrants themselves of the harsh conditions suffered during the crossings.
Regardless of the significant sums of money paid to the organizations to board the boat, migrants also had to pay large amounts if they wanted to use a life jacket during the journey.
The Atlantic route, used by these four vessels, given its hardness and danger, requires that the captains of the ships have knowledge of navigation and maritime orientation, since it is a journey that lasts 4 and 7 days depending on the departure point.
The investigative procedures carried out by the agents led to the identification of the ten alleged skippers who captained these vessels.
Among the ten identified skippers were the three who captained the boat that arrived at the port of Los Cristianos on December 11.
On this boat, possibly due to the harsh conditions of the journey, one person died and another 18 had to be urgently transferred to different hospitals on the island of Tenerife, seven of them in serious condition.
To the three skippers of this boat, along with the crime of favoring clandestine immigration, the National Police investigators attribute the alleged responsibility for the crimes of homicide and injuries due to serious recklessness.
