Scammers who targeted foreign children identified

Investigators from the National Police have developed, during the first quarter of the year, two parallel and independent investigations into two criminal networks created by two schools-football clubs of youth and senior categories to allegedly defraud relatives of minors and young foreigners, mainly Brazilians, with the false promise of making them elite professional soccer players.

The scam operated through two soccer schools in Granada and there are eleven people arrested along with two others investigated as alleged members of both organisations, who are believed to have scammed around 70 families.

The investigations into Operations Gol and Alevines have been carried out by agents of the Immigration and Border Brigade who received a complaint from a player and his coach who had been signed in their country of origin by a soccer club located in a town in the metropolitan area of Granada to play and participate in official sports competitions.

The family paid the 5,000 euro required by those responsible for the club, which included accommodation, meals, travel, private health insurance, and enrolment in an official educational centre to obtain legal residence for studies in Spain, a process that would be handled by the lawyer for the school-club. After several months of stay, they verified that nothing of what was agreed was fulfilled and that the required expenses were increasing each month.

The first checks on the club revealed the existence of about 30 young foreigners of different origins, predominantly Brazilians, between the ages of 16 and 23, who were housed in two houses rented by the sports club in a town in the metropolitan area of ​​Granada.

In parallel, there were signs of a relationship between those responsible for this club with another located in another Granada municipality, whose players, some 40, also mostly from Brazil, lived in a house owned by the managers.

In addition, the heads of both clubs had filed a multitude of regularisation files at the city’s Foreigners’ Office which, systematically, always ended up not being admitted for processing or denied, since, in practically all cases, the documentation submitted was incomplete or out of time.

A coincident fact between the players of both schools was that none of them attended classes, despite the fact that in all the regularisation files, enrolments from educational centres were provided.

In addition, they lived in the houses provided by the clubs in overcrowded conditions, with little food and none of them managed to regularise their legal residence, requesting between 1,500 and 1,700 euro more each month from each family member, on top of the initial 5,000 delivered.

The deception of the families went further, since they reported that they could not federate and it has been verified that the Andalusian football federation only requires a valid passport to participate in official competitions at the provincial or regional level.

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