Spanish police have arrested 43 people in the south of the country suspected of belonging to a criminal group that exploited illegal migrant workers, mostly from Morocco, in the agricultural sector, selling them fake documents.

The Spanish police said in a statement that the victims were "mostly Moroccan citizens" and that the detainees were "of different nationalities", without specifying.

According to the statement, the arrests took place in Malaga, Andalusia.

At least seven agricultural companies were involved in the scheme aimed at illegally employing these migrants and they were "housed in inhumane conditions in houses belonging to the group," according to a statement from the Spanish police.

In 2022, illegal immigration fell by 25.6 percent compared to the previous year, with 31,219 arrivals compared to 4,145 in 2021, according to figures published by the Spanish Interior Ministry on Tuesday.

"Migrant workers are more at risk of finding themselves in a forced labor situation than other workers,"the ILO said in a report published in September.

Moroccans represent the largest foreign community in Spain, numbering 800 thousand people, followed by Romanians, British and Colombians, according to June 2022 figures from the National Institute of Statistics.