Los 17 Mexican scholarship holders allegedly hired irregularly for the show Malinche, from the Spanish music producer Nacho Cano, were urgently summoned on August 29 by a Madrid court to testify as witnesses/victims before returning to their country on September 1.
Spanish legal sources have confirmed to EFE the summons, reported by Vozpopuli, ordered by the judge investigating the case opened against the former member of the band Mecano for alleged crimes against workers’ rights and promoting illegal immigration.
Given the imminent departure of the Mexican scholarship holders from Spain, the judge summoned them next Thursday because he prefers to take their statements in person so that it can be recorded as pre-constituted evidence, the sources added, that is, so that it is already valid in a hypothetical oral trial. With this, he avoids having to summon them in the future for a video conference, which was the intention of their legal representative.
Nacho Cano and three other people are being investigated as a result of the complaint presented by Lesly Guadalupe O.F.a dancer from Mexico selected in that country, along with other participants in a casting, to be part of the company The Malinche.
According to the court ruling, the suspects “intentionally” facilitated the entry of non-EU foreigners without a work contract but as tourists, which allows them to stay in Spanish territory for 90 days, “passing into the irregular situation” if they remain for longer.
In fact, she says, the person under investigation who provided “the migrants” with information regarding the trip through a WhatsApp group told them that they should enter Spain “without carrying any type of corporate information about the Malinche company or any other information that would suggest that their intention was to stay in Spain.”
Those selected for the musical arrived in Spain between December 2 and 10, 2023, and it was not until January 27 of this year that “those under investigation requested a Study Stay for all those chosen, supposedly, on their part, having determined that it was the accused who were in charge of managing this procedure.”
The investigation therefore reveals that “those under investigation, through the company Malinche The Musical Spain SL, would be profiting from the work activity of those selected, who after a brief period of learning songs and choreographies, would go on to work in the musical” at the Ifema fairgrounds in Madrid and receive an amount of money for it “below the agreement”.
According to the ruling, this low salary would have led those affected to have to rely on family members and savings to “be able to survive each month.”
Nacho Cano was arrested on June 9 for these events and taken to police headquarters, where he gave a statement.
With information from EFE
