They are at least 15 people between 20 and 41 years old.
They arrived in Mallorca by boat from the coasts of Algeria after being captured by the head of the criminal organization, a man born in Dellys in 1980 who recruited them in their cities of origin to come and commit crimes.
Some of them 'forgave' the cost of the trip in exchange for working for the gang upon arrival, stealing and giving him part of the loot.
They lived in a 'squatted' building in the Eixample neighborhood of Palma, which is already known to the neighbors as 'the house of terror'.
From that empty building, converted into their base of operations, a place where criminals and troubled minors escaped from public centers took refuge, they allegedly planned and committed at least 151 crimes.
They accumulated 133 arrests, mostly robberies and robberies with force committed in recent months, in a spiral of increasing violence.
First, they were theft of wallets, mobile phones and scooters, according to police sources.
Then they forced vehicles.
But the gang grew more emboldened and ended up assaulting their victims with knives, hammers and even toxic spray, with episodes that the Police describe as "extreme violence."
One of the people who denounced them was wounded, attacking him with a knife in retaliation.
The National Police has dismantled in Palma a criminal organization of entirely Algerian origin, the first detected to date, which used the flourishing route of boats between the north of Algeria and the south of the Balearic archipelago as a gateway.
A growing migratory phenomenon that so far this year has brought more than 2,000 people to the Balearic coast.
Most of them are non-conflictive, have no police records and use Mallorca as a stopover on their route to France and Belgium.
In fact, the leader of this gang is not only charged with crimes against property and squats, but also faces charges for trafficking in human beings and favoring illegal immigration.
In an operation baptized as 'Alssariq' ('thief' in Arabic), fifty agents from the UCRIF and from the Central District group of the National Police began a broad police deployment on Monday that has led to the arrest of eight of the alleged members of the band.
Among them was hierarchy, with a structure organized around the leader and a lieutenant.
One of them, the leader of the group, was sent to prison yesterday afternoon by court order while the rest were released, subject to precautionary measures.
The arrests, which had already begun in the first phase of the investigation, carried out under the utmost secrecy in recent months, are expected to continue.
The police investigation began after detecting that a 41-year-old Algerian individual made up to four trips between the coasts of Algeria and Mallorca in a boat.
He returned to the Islands even after having been released in Spanish territory.
Initially he was identified as one of the skippers of the boats, but later it was found that his role changed and that he had become an organizer of boats and recruiter of young people with limited resources whom he brought to Spain and who once here passed to be part of his band.
Among the members there are minors who were interned in sheltered centers and escaped on a recurring basis, as confirmed by police sources.
One of the detainees in this raid is one of them.
Last summer the investigation was accelerated after the repetition of robberies on the beaches near Palma, where the thieves acted with impunity, even facing tourists who resisted.
After the building in which they were sheltering caught fire, they had proceeded to 'squat' other buildings in the Avenidas and Pere Garau neighborhoods of Palma.
There they resided and kept the stolen material.
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