The Unaccompanied Minor Fraud Now Unveiled

Seven out of ten foreign individuals who claimed to be unaccompanied minors in Madrid were in fact over 18 years old when subjected to medical age tests.

This is reported by Spanish media outlets ABC and El Debate, citing information from the Madrid prosecutor’s office and the Spanish Attorney General’s annual report.

In Madrid, a total of 848 cases were opened in 2024 to determine the age of foreigners claiming to be minors. In comparison, there were 482 cases the previous year. In more than half of the instances, the case was dropped after the supposed minors abandoned the process before the medical examination could be performed.

Of the 378 individuals who were actually tested, only 112 turned out to be minors. The remaining 266 people—just over 70 percent—were found to be adults. According to Spanish data, this means that detected cases of age fraud in Madrid have tripled compared to the previous year.

The numbers at the national level also point to a significant problem. According to the annual report from the Spanish Attorney General, a total of 7,562 cases were opened in 2024 to determine the age of foreigners claiming to be unaccompanied minors.

In 2,457 cases, the individuals were assessed as adults, while 3,825 were determined to be minors or there was sufficient reason to consider them as such. Another 1,280 cases could not be completed because the individuals left the accommodations before the investigation was finished.

The Madrid region, according to Spanish media, has received over 11,000 unaccompanied minors since 2018. In 2024 alone, 2,442 entered the region’s child protection system. The regional government has also filed 29 police reports after discovering individuals who were received as minors but turned out to be adults.

Reminiscent of the Swedish Age Fraud

The figures from Spain resemble the Swedish debate after the 2015 migrant crisis, when tens of thousands of so-called unaccompanied minors arrived in Sweden, sparking a prolonged dispute over age assessments, adult men in children’s accommodations, and political demands for amnesty.

Samnytt has repeatedly examined the issue. As early as 2017, Samnytt reported that the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine assessed that 83 percent of asylum seekers who underwent age assessments and claimed to be children were actually 18 or older. Out of 4,107 statements, 3,415 indicated that the examined individual was an adult.

Samnytt has also previously reported how only one percent of age tests indicated the person had been under 18, and how similar patterns have been observed in other European countries. In Belgium, for example, figures showed that three out of four tested “unaccompanied refugee children” were actually adults.

At the same time, the issue in Sweden became politically charged. Even though many had their ages revised upward, debates over residence permits and high school amnesties continued. Samnytt has, among other things, reported on cases where unaccompanied minors with revised ages were still allowed to stay, and in an editorial described the period as “the memory of a lie – when adult men were called children”.

The new Spanish figures show that the problem was not unique to Sweden. In country after country, authorities have been forced to acknowledge that a significant proportion of migrants who claimed to be minors were actually adults—with major consequences for asylum systems, reception, municipalities, and the real children these systems are meant to protect.