A man was arrested in Arrasate for “misleading” 25 young Colombians who wanted to play football

Spain’s National Police have arrested a man and are investigating his wife for “deceiving” 25 young Colombians who wanted to come and play football.

As reported by the Spanish Government delegation to the CAV, “the investigation began last April, when two young people of Colombian nationality reported the situation they found themselves in in Spain.”

The young people explained that they moved to Euskadi when they were promised in their country of origin that they would be allowed to play on a trial basis for various football teams in the Basque Country.

In this sense, they explained that “the false promises were made by a compatriot of theirs who claims to be a talent representative.” With this information, the researchers discovered that the ‘talent hunter’ was a Colombian who lived in Arrasate and had a project in Spain called ‘The house of dreams‘, where several boys from mainly Colombia and Mexico played.

Apparently, this project was very actively advertised on a well-known social network, where it was presented as an agency working to realize “the dream of many footballers to play in Spain”, and it called itself “talent representative“.

The investigators learned that this man was acting in collaboration with his romantic partner, who also lived in Arrasate, and with another man who worked as a coach in Colombia and helped them recruit boys “who wanted to build a prosperous future in professional football.” .” With these findings and after appropriate investigations, the investigators of the Foreigners Operational Group II of San Sebastián, in collaboration with the local police of Arrasate, have located the existence of 25 young Colombians, both adults and minors, who came from their country of origin had moved, origins pursuing the same promises and for which they had paid significant sums. At the same time, they discovered that three Basque football clubs, in particular the Arrasate Football Club, Sporting de Lutxana and the Aretxabaleta Sports Unionwas also a victim of this deception.

The same sources have explained that ‘the’method‘ of the detainee and his partner consisted of ‘giving instructions to the young people regarding payments, admission requirements and conditions to come to Spain, charging certain amounts as representation, maintenance and accommodation costs, as well as for issuing invitations’. letters. Regarding the above-mentioned invitation letters, the person under investigation “asked the young people for between 200 and 300 euros so that one of the above-mentioned football clubs would issue them a document inviting the boys to train and play in the team for three months. is the maximum period allowed by the situation of residence in Spain”.

These documents allowed young people to believe that there really was a Basque club interested in them and that they would ultimately make the decision to move.

In this sense, the officers confirmed that the person under investigation had at least four rental contracts for different addresses in the municipality of Arrasate. They rented each house for a price between 750 and 1,100 euros, and then sublet the rooms, with 10 to 12 children per house, “demonstrating the lucrative potential of the business, taking into account that each young person between 400 and had to pay 400 euros.” and 500 euros per month for housing and maintenance costs. For all the reasons mentioned above, on June 12, the arrest of the suspect and the indictment of his partner, for allegedly committing several crimes against the rights of foreign citizens and forging documents. The case is being handled by the Bergara Investigative Court and new arrests in connection with the plot are not ruled out.