MIAMI - Seventeen Mexican dancers from Nacho Cano's musical "Malinche" have filed complaints against the Spanish police, accusing authorities of coercion and document falsification. These complaints emerged following an interrogation carried out as part of a police investigation that led to the producer and ex Mecano's arrest last week.
According to legal sources cited by EFE news agency, the Mexican scholarship dancers from the musical have lodged 17 individual complaints, which will be processed in different courts but describe the same incidents: improper treatment by the police, including coercion and manipulated documents.
The Mexican dancers' complaints
The first filing was assigned to the 38th Court of Instruction in Plaza de Castilla, which is likely to absorb the rest. On June 17, twelve officers stormed a Madrid church where the dancers were rehearsing, claiming they were conducting a labor inspection. The dancers were then taken to the police station for several hours to be questioned about their working conditions, an action the complainants consider irregular.
The dancers also claim the officers coerced them and created manipulated documents. Furthermore, they find it irregular that they had no access to a previous complaint filed by a cast member against Nacho Cano for allegedly hiring illegal immigrants, which was lodged months earlier but only became a judicial matter after the arrest.
Sources close to the case stated that, besides these 17 complaints, the law firm representing the scholarship dancers has filed another one for other alleged offenses, including the presence of a 15-year-old minor in the church. The police did not take the minor to the station but kept her at the location, took her statement, and did not call her parents.
What happened with Nacho Cano and the police
Nacho Cano, a former member of the band Mecano, was arrested on July 9 and taken to police custody for alleged offenses against workers' rights and promoting illegal immigration. On the same day, a 54-year-old Mexican woman from his team was also arrested.
The musician and producer was released pending a court summons, which eventually went to the 19th Court of Instruction in Madrid. Cano explained in a press conference after his arrest that the complaint originated from a scholarship program, in partnership with a school, to bring young talent for the future premiere of "Malinche" in Mexico.
Cano claimed that one of the scholarship recipients, whom he described as "troublesome" and dismissed, supposedly filed the complaint. He stated, "The criminal is not me, it's the police who should be investigated," accusing the officers of detaining him for "10 minutes" just to take a photo and leak it to the media.
The young complainant publicly stated that the dancers were warned to pass border controls as tourists, were forced to work from Monday to Saturday for twelve hours under poor conditions and received only about 300 euros per month. The other Mexican scholarship dancers in the show supported Nacho Cano at his press conference and have publicly defended the producer.
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