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

The Spanish National Police have arrested a man and are investigating his wife for “defrauding” 25 young Colombians who wanted to come play football.

As the Spanish government delegation told CAV, “the investigation began in April last year when two young people of Colombian nationality reported the situation they were suffering from in Spain.”

The young people explained that they moved to Euskadi when they received promises from their country of origin to try out for various football teams in the Basque Country.

In this sense, they explained that “false promises were made by their compatriot, who claims to be a representative of talent.” Thanks to this information, investigators found out that the “talent hunter” was a Colombian resident of Arrasate, who had a project in Spain called “Dream House‘, where various boys played, mainly from Colombia and Mexico.

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

Investigators learned that the man acted in collaboration with his romantic partner, also living in Arrasate, and another man who worked as a coach in Colombia and helped them recruit boys “who wanted to build a prosperous future in professional football.” ” Thanks to these findings and after carrying out relevant investigations, the investigators of the II Task Force for Foreigners of San Sebastian, in collaboration with the local police of Arrasate, established the existence of 25 young Colombians, both adults and minors, who moved from their country of origin, pursuing the same promises and for which they spent significant sums of money. At the same time, they discovered that three Basque football clubs in particular. Arrasate Football Club, Sporting de Luciana and Aretxabaleta Sports Unionalso became victims of this deception.

The same sources explained that “course of action‘ of the detainee and his partner consisted of “instructing young people regarding payment, entry requirements and conditions for coming to Spain, charging them certain amounts of money as entertainment, maintenance and living expenses, as well as issuing invitations.” letters. Regarding the above-mentioned invitation letters, the defendant “asked the young people for 200 to 300 euros so that one of the above-mentioned football clubs would issue them a document inviting the guys to train and play in the team. For three months, which is the maximum period permitted by the situation of stay in Spain.”

With these documents, the young people could believe that there really was a Basque club that was interested in them, and that they would finally decide to move.

In this sense, the agents confirmed that the person under investigation had at least four rental agreements for different addresses in the municipality of Arrasate. They rented each house for between €750 and €1,100 and then sublet the rooms, taking in between 10 and 12 children in each house, “demonstrating the lucrative potential of the business, bearing in mind that each young person had to pay between €400 ” and 500 euros per month for living and maintenance expenses.” For all the above reasons, June 12 arrest of the suspect and indictment of his partner, on charges of committing a number of crimes against the rights of foreign citizens and falsifying documents. The case is being heard at the Investigative Court of Bergara, and more arrests related to the conspiracy cannot be ruled out.