The Directorate General of the Civil Guard today reported the arrest in Mallorca of the leader of an organisation dedicated to human trafficking that financed jihadist terrorism. According to information from the Ministry of the Interior, the detainee had facilitated the transfer of fighters from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia to areas controlled by jihadist factions in Libya.

Members of the Information Service of the Guardia Civil arrested on the night of 31 July in the town of Llucmajor (Mallorca) an individual of Algerian nationality for terrorist offences. The investigations revealed that the arrested individual led a criminal organisation from Europe dedicated to human trafficking with connections to facilitator groups based in North Africa.

Taking advantage of this infrastructure, he facilitated the transfer of fighters from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia to areas controlled by jihadist factions in Libya, groups which he in turn financed with funds from his criminal activity. For these acts he was internationally requisitioned by Interpol.

The operation involved close collaboration between the Guardia Civil, Interpol and the Algerian authorities, and the rapid coordination between the investigators and their counterparts were key to the detection of the detainee, who was highly mobile internationally and had documentation of various nationalities at the time of his arrest.

The detainee has been imprisoned, but the investigation remains open to clarify the reasons for his presence in Spain as well as to detect other members or collaborators of his network. It is suspected that this criminal organisation was behind the latest entries of terrorist fighters from Algeria into Spain, who have already been arrested.

Since the upgrading to level 4 of the Anti-Terrorist Alert on 26 June 2015, the Guardia Civil has stepped up all investigations related to this type of structure of collaboration with terrorism and, with special importance, in those connections between individuals present or resident in Spain and other persons resident in neighbouring countries, reinforcing international police cooperation.