A widespread scandal has rocked Spain: On June 24, 2025, Spain’s National Police arrested six individuals in Málaga who had been forging and selling Sephardic certificates for years. These fraudulent activities enabled the unauthorized immigration and naturalization of thousands of people by faking their Spanish-Jewish ancestry. During the extensive raid, 1,237 forged ancestry certificates for Sephardic origin were seized, though the total number of fake documents remains uncertain. Additionally, 3.2 million euros were frozen in various accounts, and ten properties were confiscated.
How the Scammers Operated and the System’s Flaws
According to investigators, the criminals charged between 6,000 and 8,000 euros per applicant. With these fake Sephardic certificates, applicants relatively easily obtained Spanish citizenship. Investigations into this case have been ongoing since 2021, triggered by “irregularities” noticed by the Spanish Prime Minister’s office, which is responsible for the program.
The Historical Irony of “Crypto-Jews” and the Citizenship Law
The incident carries a profound historical irony. By 1492 at the latest, Spanish Jews often paid dearly, sometimes forfeiting all their possessions, to cease being Jews on paper. They sought to escape the Edict of Granada (also known as the Alhambra Decree) issued by the Catholic Monarchs, which ordered the expulsion of all Spanish Jews and their execution if they refused. This era gave rise to the term Crypto-Jews.
More than 500 years after this first racial law in Europe, beginning in 2015, thousands of people from the Maghreb, Latin America, Southeast Europe, and Turkey paid considerable sums to prove their Spanish-Jewish ancestry. With the Sephardic certificate, they gained the right to Spanish citizenship. The basis for this was Real Decreto 12/2015, which acknowledged Spain’s historical debt for the deportation of its Jewish citizens and facilitated the return of descendants to Spain through a rather leaky immigration law, as a form of restitution.
A Law Full of Contradictions: Ancestry and the Quest for Proof
The fact that the law was based on ancestry, a “right of blood,” making it a kind of “positive racial law,” was just one of the initiative’s contradictions. Another was the nearly forensic impossibility of proving a Sephardic bloodline spanning over 500 years. This was recently highlighted by the case of Christopher Columbus, who, according to the latest DNA analyses, may also have been a Spanish Jew or a descendant of Sephardic Jews, rather than an old-established Catholic Genoese. There is also a possibility that Antonio de Lebrija, the “father” of the Spanish language, operated under the Inquisition’s “radar” as a descendant of Sephardic Jews, though there is no proof.
The Sephardic Heritage in Spain Today
Today, the Sephardic heritage is cultivated in Spain in many ways, often through private initiatives of immigrants with Sephardic roots, supported by organizations and the state. Examples include the tourist network Caminos de Sefarad, cultural centers and museums such as those in Córdoba, an interpretation center in the old Jewish quarter—actually the “ghetto” of Seville, where the first major pogroms began in 1391—or in the Barrio Realejo of Granada. The restoration of synagogues “buried” for centuries also contributes. The Museum Sefardí in Toledo, with its magnificent synagogue, is considered a flagship project.
The Missed Opportunity for the Descendants of the Moors
Spain did not extend this offer to the descendants of the Moors, who lived in what is now Spain (then Al-Andalus) for over 700 years and whose cultural influence on Spain’s culture and development was incomparably greater than that of the Sephardic Jews. Inquiries are met with an embarrassed silence from politicians. Moroccans, in particular, felt offended, as many Moors and Moriscos resettled in Morocco after their expulsion, creating a kind of time capsule of Moorish Andalusia, and residents also felt they had a certain right to become Spanish citizens as a former Spanish colony. They were angered by this renewed exclusion, which was perceived as simply “Islamophobic”—which, in essence, it is. However, Moroccans do enjoy certain immigration privileges, especially in low-wage sectors, though these still fall behind those for people from (Christian-influenced) Latin American countries.
Political Fiasco: The Law for the Naturalization of Descendants of Spanish Jews
The application deadline for the “Return of Sephardic Jews to Spain” project initially ended on June 30, 2021. By then, nearly 60,000 applications for Spanish citizenship were received, some of which are still being processed. Additionally, the government imposed several extensions, due to Corona, but also because of expected difficulties and fraudulent irregularities with Sephardic certificates in several countries of origin. However, they wanted to give honest applicants another chance. Meanwhile, over 100,000 applications have accumulated, and more continue to come in.
A veritable business emerged with service providers from Buenos Aires to Istanbul to Jerusalem. More or less reputable “agencies” appeared online and on social media, handling Sephardic proofs and Spanish citizenship applications for sometimes enormous fees. The fact that direct, brazen fraudsters are now operating in Spain itself has led the National Police to further tighten control mechanisms. Whether already granted citizenships will be reviewed and possibly revoked is a matter about which the government remains as silent as it is about the nationality of the arrested counterfeiters. Rumors suggest that lawyers and officials also collaborated with the network in exchange for “baksheesh.” The Spanish government seems to have lost control of the entire project, administratively and politically. Morally, it was never particularly clever.
