Spanish investigations into the case of trafficking in Schengen visas within the Consulate General in Algeria revealed new data, after the consul’s secretary confessed to transferring about 35,000 euros to be spent on the black market, in conjunction with investigators monitoring that the wife of a former consular official owns six properties, worth approximately 784,000 euros.
In the latest developments in the file, the secretary of the Spanish Consul admitted before the judiciary that a total amount of 34,813 euros had been transferred to Algeria, during the period extending from the beginning of 2022 to March 2026, for the purpose of converting it to the Algerian dinar in the parallel market, with the help of her partner.
And it reported The Spanish newspaper “The Objective” In an investigation published on Tuesday, November 10, the secretary made these statements before Judge Maria Tardon, supervising the case at the Spanish National Court, explaining that the money was arriving to her via bank transfers from other people, before withdrawing it in cash from ATMs in Spain and transporting it to Algeria during her frequent trips.
According to the data reported by the newspaper, the secretary was responsible for disbursing this money in the parallel market with the help of her partner, then handing over its value in Algerian dinars to its owners, while she traveled to Spain once or twice a month, making sure that the amount she carried on each trip did not exceed 3,000 euros to avoid raising suspicions.
The investigators’ suspicions were not limited to the transfer of money between the two countries, as they also suspected her of bringing cash into Spain as part of the same operations, which placed her financial movements and travels under the investigation microscope.
On the other hand, investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Unit of the Spanish National Police (UDEF) revealed that the wife of a former consular official owns at least six properties in Algiers, which were acquired during the period between 2016 and 2021.
The Objective reported, in an investigation published on Monday, November 9, that the total value of these properties amounted to about 120 million Algerian dinars, equivalent to 783,919 euros, according to documents and data obtained by investigators.
The case concerns the wife of Vicente Moreno, the former consular advisor who served as second-in-command at the Spanish Consulate in Algeria, and was responsible for the visa department. The police report, according to the newspaper, indicated that the couple may also own real estate in Portugal.
The same source added that the investigators’ report, submitted to Judge Maria Tardon, who is supervising the case before the Spanish National Court, included data regarding a previous relationship of the official’s wife with the “BLS” company, which is responsible for receiving visa applications and booking appointments, as she is suspected of providing services to the company during the period when her husband was in charge of the visa authority in Algeria in 2007.
The investigations go beyond the issue of real estate to suspicions of the existence of an organized network that exploited the procedures for granting Schengen visas to achieve huge financial gains, as the Spanish authorities are suspected of charging sums of up to 25 thousand euros per family in exchange for facilitating obtaining visas, even for people who do not meet the required legal conditions.
According to what was reported “The Objective”, The network relied on passing files with documents that were not subject to adequate verification, and others suspected of forgery or changing their data, in exchange for paying sums of money to individuals suspected of belonging to it. The suspicious activities also extended to facilitating obtaining residence permits and self-employment within the countries of the Schengen Area, including Spain and France.
Investigations also monitored the possibility of the network benefiting from the services of administrative bodies responsible for booking appointments and processing visa files, with the name of “BLS” platforms appearing in the case file, without the published data proving the involvement of the company itself in this network.
The case includes six people, led by Vicente Moreno and local employee M. Potochenet, who were arrested in Spain at the end of last April, along with the wife of the former consular official, Amina Nisreen Beljoudi.
The investigations also extended last September to three other employees of the consulate, including the secretary of the Consul General, and two administrative employees of the Visa Authority.
The beginning of the case goes back to official correspondence from the Spanish Embassy in Algeria, specifically from the Interior Counsel, which alerted to the existence of a network suspected of aiming to achieve financial profits by granting Schengen visas in fraudulent ways, before the investigations expanded to include employees, former officials, and suspicions of money laundering.
Beljoudi denies owning the aforementioned properties in Algeria or providing services to BLS, considering the two claims to be baseless, according to what was stated in her defense memorandum addressed to the judge supervising the case.
Her defense demanded that an investigation be conducted by the Algerian authorities through a judicial delegation to verify the allegations that his client owns real estate in Algeria. This request was previously submitted last June, before it was renewed in October, due to the fact that no decision had been issued regarding it until the date of the memorandum dated October 16.
The defense considered that the two allegations related to real estate and work at BLS represent the only facts on which the investigations against its client are based, demanding that the necessary investigations be conducted and the truth of these allegations be clarified.
The case raised repercussions within Spanish diplomacy, after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to return Vicente Moreno to Madrid, while sending an inspection mission to the Spanish Consulate General in Algeria for a week, starting last September 20.
The case exploded in April 2026, after the arrest of a former consular official and a local employee, on suspicion of their involvement in receiving bribes in exchange for facilitating the granting of Schengen visas, amid investigations into the exploitation of influence. And collecting money illegally.
