Agents of the Mossos and the Urban Guard They have arrested a man and a woman as alleged perpetrators of a crime of trafficking in human beings in order to exploit the victims and force them to practice begging. The police operation, which was carried out on June 7, has allowed the release of two victims who They lived in subhuman conditions.. Initially, they were transferred to the Barcelona Emergency and Social Emergency Center (CUESB), where they received initial assistance, and they are currently under specialized help which is activated in cases of human trafficking.
The agents began the investigation in November last year when two men were detected begging daily in the Sants-Montjuïc district of Barcelona, for which they carried out different surveillance to clarify the facts and check if behind them there were other people who controlled them, they watched them and forced them to practice begging, as could be verified.
A whole day begging
The clan leaders were a man and a woman who were in charge of transporting the victims, in some cases in the trunk of their vehicle, to the determined point where they had to beg. They left them at a point and forced them to ask money for a whole day, until they came back to collect them.
The method consisted, first of all, in looking for people in their country of origin in a situation of vulnerability and severe financial need. If they could, they prioritized people with physical disabilitiesmainly for two reasons: on the one hand, people with disabilities are likely to receive more money when begging, and on the other, this disability made it more difficult for them to enter the labor market both in their country of origin and in Catalonia. Once in Barcelona, they were made to be in different parts of the city taking advantage of red lights to request money between cars that they were standing
Strong control over victims
The victims They lived in terrible conditions. The clan leaders provided them with a small amount of food and drink, and physically searched them every day to keep all the video money they had raised. They made them live in a vacant lot, and they were only given a mattress to sleep on, even if the weather conditions were adverse. The researchers verified that the people of the clan slept in the same place but with a tent.
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The clan exercised tight control over the victims, since they watched them at traffic lights and in the place where they slept so that they could not leave and did not have freedom of movement. In addition, the people they exploited only spoke their language, which made them more vulnerable and unable to ask for help, making them completely dependent.
The clan, located in the Magòria area (Sants-Montjuïc), made the exploitation of vulnerable people and forced begging its method, which has constituted, along with human trafficking, a very serious crime against people. Both detainees were the leaders of a family clan consisting of about 10 peopleabout which could not be credited their criminal activity in this area. They are related to a history of robbery with force.