Migrants are travelling to Spain on tourist visas and abandoning their children so that their families can claim asylum, Spanish police have said.
The parents leave their children outside police stations and children’s homes before flying home so they can be taken into state care as refugees, police in the east coast province of Tarragona said.
They aim to play the system and use the children to secure family reunification at a later date, authorities warned.
Police said they uncovered the “sophisticated” operation and have now arrested 30 people accused of abandoning their children.
The total scale of the social security fraud could amount to £1.3 million, a spokesman for national police in Spain’s Catalonia region, covering Tarragona, said.
Police have now arrested 30 people accused of abandoning their children – ANTONIO SEMPERE/AFP
Earlier this month, officials in the Balearic Islands, Spain’s tourist hub, said that they were seeing a “new phenomenon” of African parents flying to the holiday destination to dump their children.
Privately, they said they were not ruling out the possibility that such parents could later ask their children to bring other family members to live with them in Europe once they turn 18.
However, the practice was previously thought to be made up of isolated incidents. Earlier this month, it was revealed by Carmen Reynes, Menorca’s welfare minister, that two youngsters aged 11 and 16, from Morocco and Senegal respectively, had been abandoned at a bus station as their parents jetted home.
In Ibiza, it was reported that two children from North Africa had been left behind on the island by their parents, who gave them instructions to head to a police station to claim refugee treatment.
At the time, Ms Reynes warned that the trend could have a “knock-on effect”, with the potential for cases of abandonment to spiral.
Officials said that they were seeing a ‘new phenomenon’ of African parents flying to the Balearic Islands to dump their children – Paul Grover
The Catalonia region police spokesman said: “The National Police has detected a fraud involving a sophisticated modus operandi in the system of unaccompanied foreign minors in the province of Tarragona.”
The scheme amounted to a “systemic pattern of deliberate abandonment of children by their own parents in order to exploit the state’s welfare and guardianship resources,” the police outlined.
“The investigation, which began in November 2023, has uncovered how families bring their underage children to Spain on single or multiple-entry C-type tourist visas, obtained despite the strict financial solvency requirements.”
The spokesman said that as part of the scheme, minors are “intentionally abandoned” outside police stations, juvenile centres and other public institutions, instructed by their parents to “declare themselves to be in a situation of neglect” in order to gain admittance to care centres.
“The main objective is for public institutions to assume the costs of maintenance, education and health, while facilitating the path to future family reunification and the obtaining of residence permits for the minors,” the spokesman said.
Menorca’s welfare minister warned that the trend could have a ‘knock-on effect’ – ANTONIO SEMPERE/AFP
Caring for children who have been dumped carries a cost of between €31-140 (£27-122) per day from the state coffers, according to the force, which added that it “undermines the child protection system”.
“In view of this situation, the National Police has established direct bilateral cooperation with the Directorate-General for Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents in the province of Tarragona,” the spokesman said.
The 30 suspects identified in the investigation were arrested on suspicion of child abandonment and aiding illegal immigration and fraud against the government.
“Investigations are ongoing as the costs incurred by these young people while in government care are being quantified, along with the rest of the cases currently under review,” the spokesman said.
Police in Tarragona said on Saturday that they were unable to offer any more information, including details on where the people arrested came from.
The Right-wing Popular Party has responded by demanding a macro-audit of the system of care for unaccompanied minors across Catalonia.
Earlier this month, officials in the Balearic Islands vented their anger over the abandonment of African youngsters there following record numbers of arrivals by boat from Algeria.
b’
0608 Migrant crossings in Spain
‘
Carolina Escandell, the Ibizan welfare minister, described the practice as “child abandonment” and complained at the time that “if they were Spanish, the parents would be reported.”
Ms Reynes of Menorca also expressed concern that “as well as having to cope with migrants arriving by sea, this new phenomenon now has to be taken into account. It could have a knock-on effect.”
The Balearic government previously voted to crack down on benefits being handed out to asylum seekers amid complaints that the holiday hotspot is becoming a “magnet” for arrivals by sea.
The Algeria-Balearics route is thought to be Europe’s most rapidly growing short sea crossing for people seeking asylum and has proved deadly for many as authorities were accused of stalling in their response to the crisis.
Undocumented migrant arrivals to the Balearic Islands shot up by 84 per cent between January 1 and September 30 in 2025 compared with the same period in the previous year, and the vast majority were sea crossings.
