Police in Spain, France, and Italy working with the attorney general’s office of the Dominican Republic have made nearly a dozen arrests after dismantling a sex trafficking network that forced at least 41 into sexual slavery and carried out money laundering offences.
The network is said to have operated mainly in France and coordinated the sexual exploitation of their victims using call centres located in Spain and Italy, the newspaper El Mundo reports.
Members of the gang would fool so-called clients into thinking they were talking with the trafficking victims directly when they were actually talking with members of the network, who after the deal was made, would then force the victims to perform the sexual acts agreed upon with those paying the network money.
Victims were also constantly moved to different cities after just a few days of staying in a single location, in order to hide the criminal activity and make sure the victims were not able to make any connections with the outside world.
One of the hubs of the network was located in the town of Figueres in northwestern Spain and another in the Italian town of Rho, just outside of Milan.
Members of the criminal network are said to have used the two locations to publish advertisements online, as well as manage the logistics of booking train tickets to move the victims from city to city and booking apartments where sexual abuse took place. The leaders of the network later created another logistics centre in the Dominican Republic.
Following an investigation into the network’s activities, 20 searches were carried out: 14 in France, three in Spain, two in Italy, and one in the Dominican Republic. A total of ten people were arrested: four in France, one in Italy, three in Spain, and two in the Dominican Republic.
During the searches, police also seized over €70,000 in cash, over a hundred different mobile phones, two luxury vehicles, and assorted jewellery, watches, and various pieces of documentation.
The case is just the latest bust of a sex trafficking network in Europe, as the continent sees sex trafficking and people-smuggling networks dismantled on a seemingly regular basis.
Sex trafficking in Europe is often linked to illegal immigration and organised criminal groups. Last year, Spanish police dismantled a large sex trafficking network of mainly Chinese nationals, arresting a total of 63 people in Bilbao, Zaragoza, and Madrid. According to investigators, that network would import women from China on the promise of a better life and job opportunities, only to force them into sexual slavery once they arrived in Spain. The traffickers are said to have profited enormously from the exploitation of the women, up to €five million in total.
Just a few weeks prior to the announcement of the dismantling of the Chinese sex trafficking network, Spanish police busted another sexual exploitation network that involved children. One of the members of the network, most of whom were foreign nationals, is said to have pimped out his own underage daughter, claiming she was 18 on adult websites.
During this most recent, international bust, another alleged member of the group, a Dominican-born YouTube rapper named Saymol, was also accused of being involved in the network’s activities by using his large social media presence to lure underage girls for sexual exploitation.
Organised criminal gangs from Africa have also been particularly prevalent in sex trafficking women into Europe, particularly in Italy, Sweden, and elsewhere.
The notorious gang Black Axe, originally from Nigeria, has seen members and associates arrested in several countries relating to the sex trafficking of women who are often brought to Europe through illegal immigration channels, such as the dangerous boat journeys across the Mediterranean Sea.
Some apologists for prostitution, who label such activity ‘sex work,’ have called for prostitution to be legalised, including groups like Human Rights Watch, arguing that prostitutes would be safer if such activity were legal.
However, studies have confirmed that sex trafficking has increased in countries where prostitution is legal.
Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization.
A European Union report released last year also noted that countries in the bloc with legalised prostitution had higher rates of sex trafficking than those which prohibit prostitution:
Sex trafficking is firmly linked to the EU Member States’ prostitution markets at destination. These markets are characterised by an increasing volume of ‘foreign prostitution’ activities, and are therefore populated by a great number of non-national prostitutes. … many women who end up being exploited in the richest countries of the EU and where the prostitution markets are more flourishing come from countries such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia.
The report also defines the dominant demographic of the traffickers as Chinese and Nigerian, and the victims predominantly as women and girls from Eastern Europe, Nigeria, Albania, and China:
As far as traffickers are concerned: offenders are predominantly male; many criminal groups of sex traffickers originate from EU countries; the most active non-EU crime groups are Chinese and Nigerian; crime groups are characterised by mobility and the ability to move from one [member state] to another according to opportunities; sex trafficking groups in the EU are often poly-criminal. … As far as victims are concerned: THB [Trafficking in Human Beings ] for sexual exploitation in the EU is a gender-specific phenomenon (the very great majority of victims are women; the majority of sex trafficking flows involve EU citizens, with girls mainly coming from Eastern EU [member states]; Nigeria, Albania, and China are the three main non-EU sending countries; more and more victims act under supposedly voluntary business agreements.
