31 accused of buying at least 28 babies in Morocco

Melilla - Morocco frontier

MELILLA The Guardia Civil recently announced that it had managed to clear up a network of people that over the years have sold at least 28 Moroccan babies to couples on the peninsula. The group, headed by three sisters from Tetouan, included some 31 people, of whom twelve have since died. Fourteen of the victims have been identified, some of whom were not aware they had been adopted. Two of the sisters moved to Melilla (the Spanish enclave on the North African coast), where they searched out couples there and on the Spanish mainland who for one reason or another were unable to have children of their own. The third sister>>>

Largest gold haul ever, caught in Melilla on the way to 'laundry'

The haul of gold

MELILLA The largest haul of gold ever caught on Spanish territory was grabbed recently in Melilla, the Spanish enclave on the North African coast. The 140 kilos precious metal, valued at almost €5.5million, was bought over some time at jewelers all over Europe and was on its way to Morocco for resale, and thus to be 'laundered'. According to Melilla police sources, the haul was found in the boot of a vehicle belonging to a Melilla resident, parked inside a garage in the town and occupied by its owner and another person. The same source says that the find was the result of long-time investigations of an organisation specialising in laundering money that comes from drug, mainly hashish, smuggling from Morocco and distributed all over Spain and the rest of the European Union.

Wikileaks: Ceuta and Melilla are key drug transit points according to Rabat

CEUTA/MELILLA (Agencies) According to US diplomatic cables released recently by Wikileaks, the two Spanish outposts in North Africa are key transit points for cocaine moving from Latin America through Africa and into Europe. The cables also claim that the Spanish enclaves are important gateways for heroin destined for addicts in Morocco. The claims were recorded in correspondence from the US embassy in Rabat, attributed to unnamed officials in the Moroccan government and published earlier this week in El País newspaper. The same report says that the drugs are sent into West African countries from Latin America and then across Mauretania, Mali and Algeria through sparsely populated areas of the Sahara desert, making the most of lax, corrupt or nonexistent border controls to get shipments into Morocco and the Spanish cities.>