During the control session of the Government this past Tuesday in the
Senate,
the senator for Barcelona
Robert Masih
(ERC) denounced a case of corruption in the diplomatic missions of Spain in
India and Pakistan.
Taking advantage of the presence of the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares,
Masih revealed the operation of mafias that traffic in prior appointments to request visas.
The most striking thing is that
the minister acknowledged that there are mafias that profit
from this business.
The plot, explained the senator, is that when one wants to make an appointment to apply for a visa, there is none left, or the waiting list is weeks or months.
"But if we're in a hurry, there are solutions," he said, "previous appointments are sold: an urgent appointment, between 800 and 1,000 euros, an appointment in a week, between 500 and 700 euros; a tourist visa, 25,000 euros, yes, they have I heard correctly, 25,000 euros".
Masih said that the system collapses continuously and appointments are sold at the door:
"These mafias can be found on the street right outside the door of the embassy,
they do not have to go anywhere to look," he said. Masih.
"It is clear that
without the involvement of some embassy employee you cannot block
and sell the appointments," he added.
He also claimed to have proof of the sale of visas for 25,000 euros.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in his reply.ZIPI ARAGONEFE
"People who don't want to pay the mafias don't get dates, and the embassy doesn't answer them," Masih denounced.
"I bring two cases, one from Pakistan and the other from India, but I could bring hundreds of cases that I will then deliver to the minister," and he offered the evidence to Albares,
although he later did not take it.
Masih is the only member of Indian origin in the Upper House, he has lived in
Spain
for more than 20 years and knows the problems of his compatriots because he has very close relations with the Indian community both in
Catalonia
and in
Madrid.
He is also the director of the
Indali Foundation,
which together with the
Indian Culture Center distributed
food to more than 15,000 families in the Barcelona
metropolitan area
during the worst moments of the pandemic, among other solidarity projects to fight poverty, such as food distribution in India.
With the information of his contacts in Spain, India and Pakistan, he denounced this situation and asked the minister
why Foreign Affairs does not remedy
this situation.
The most peculiar thing was that Albares
recognized that "there are certain people who take advantage of appointment systems
with the intention of generating that shortage of shifts and obtaining benefits."
New control systems
The minister added that "these are very different situations depending on the different countries. Fundamentally there are two types of actions that we systematically combat: there are people or organizations that
do business by taking over all the appointments in the agendas
of the consulates, generating that shortage and forcing those interested to obtain an appointment after payment, and there are also
people who offer appointments on websites with an official appearance
in exchange for an amount of money, which is a clear fraud. Every time we detect an action like this, we report it and we fight it locally".
Albares said that to combat these mafias, "the most effective measures are those of a technological nature", that is,
modifying traditional dating applications
"for much more complex ones that prevent someone from monopolizing all the appointments."
Despite acknowledging that these mafias traffic in prior appointments, Albares said that these situations are the exception.
In 2019, 2.1 million visas were processed "and in the majority there is no type of fraud".
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