On November 5, 2021, a plane from Morocco bound for Turkey made an emergency landing at the Palma de Mallorca airport. One of the passengers had become very ill. “The man could go into a diabetic coma in 15 minutes and die. An ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital. He was accompanied by another of the travelers, a boy who knew some Spanish and offered to act as a translator ”.
“The plane was left on the runway with the door open. The passengers began to get impatient. The commander, who didn't know Arabic, wasn't sure if they were loud or angry, but he didn't push the button used for conflict. Suddenly several men said they wanted to go out for a smoke. Ten boys got out and ran. Another group followed. Air traffic had to be interrupted.
A total of 22 people illegally entered Spanish territory that night. Operation Brooklyn was underway. Lucía Muñoz and Sergio Rodrigo, two journalists from Malaga specialized in immigration, were returning from work that day, heard the news on the radio and began to investigate. They saw that they had “an adrenaline story” on their hands and decided to take it to the movies.
Muñoz and Rodrigo contacted CAPA Spain, the documentary brand of the iZen Group, and its chief scriptwriter, Adolfo Moreno, who immediately became involved in the matter and joined the investigation. Operation Brooklyn thus became a documentary that premiered at the Atlàntida Film Fest in Palma de Mallorca.
“We were facing a thriller plot with the Police, the Civil Guard and the Army looking for 22 people who had fled and hidden on the island. It was also the first time something like this had happened in the world. And it was also a very good opportunity to investigate the reason for the migratory impulse, which is one of the great challenges of our time”, Moreno points out in an interview with La Vanguardia.
Most of the fled were young people in their 20s, they were arrested and remanded in custody accused of the crime of sedition. Two other of the escaped passengers, ages 40 and 48, were not found. It is known that they traveled by boat to Barcelona and the Police believe that they tried to enter Switzerland through the Italian border.
The Operation Brooklyn team tried to find all the pieces of the puzzle: they traveled to Morocco to speak with the relatives of those involved, they corresponded with the detainees whom they could not interview in jail, despite having requested it, and they agreed to part of the summary containing telephone conversations.
Were the passengers on the plane in cahoots to crash the landing and escape? “There are those who think that there was coordination between them because a few months before a post from a Moroccan group called Brooklyn was uploaded to Facebook. But there are also those who think that the State institutions wanted to give an exemplary punishment so that this situation would not repeat itself. It seems that the initial idea of these guys was to get to Turkey, for which they do not need a visa, and then travel through Europe to Spain.
On January 12, the government eliminated the sedition and the youths of Operation Brooklyn were released on charges only of minor crimes. They are awaiting trial. “They were sent to a detention center in Barcelona. The first thing they did is go to the Camp Nou, photograph themselves and upload it to the networks. They slept rough that night."
This episode helps Moreno to reflect on "the mirage that social networks have become, because a boy who is in Morocco can see those images and think that in Europe life is better without anyone telling him about the hardships which will have to be faced”.
