Twelve people were arrested this week in France, Spain and Colombia in an unprecedented transatlantic operation to dismantle a trafficking ring that sexually exploited at least fifty women Latin Americans in French cities.

The victims, aged between 20 and 40, were “mainly Colombian and Venezuelan, but also from Peru and Paraguay,” Commissioner Elvire Arrighi, head of the Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking, told AFP on Friday. of human beings. OCRTEH).

“They (women) were absolutely industrially exploited in France”, with up to ten services per daywhich has allowed the network to obtain up to 30 million euros a year in profits, underlined Arrighi.

The network, whose organization was pyramidal, was directed from Colombia by a couple formed by a Colombian and a Venezuelan, who recruited the victims with false promises of a better future in Europe and reaped the benefits.

The operation led to his arrest in Colombia; of six other people – four men and two women – in Spain; and two men and two women in France, according to the police source, who confirmed a radio report Inter French and from the newspaper the Parisians.

The detainees in France, in the city of Saint-Louis (northeast), are of Spanish or Colombian nationality, indicated the newspaper, specifying that the operation took place simultaneously on Tuesday at six in the morning in France and Spain, and at midnight in Colombia.

Chronicle of a transatlantic operation

In September 2021, the French court opened an investigation into pimping, aggravated human trafficking, organized gang money laundering and conspiracy, according to a judicial source, a year after two Colombians filed a complaint in Bordeaux.

The researchers later realized that the the network is international and the judicial system has contacted Colombia and Spain, as well as the European police cooperation agency Europol, to continue the investigation and identify the victims, at least 50.

The network forced them into prostitution all over France: from the western Atlantic coast (La Roche-sur-Yon, La Rochelle, Mérignac) to Saint-Louis or eastern Annemasse, via Roubaix or Dunkerque in the north or Plaisir and Bussy-Saint-Georges in the Paris region.

The women were “completely isolated”, as they “didn’t speak French” and were constantly moved around, which is why they “didn’t stay more than a week in the same city”, according to Arrighi, who specified that the victims “had no control over the their programs.

“The network had in Spain a call center who acted as an intermediary between customers calling from France” to the numbers of online advertisements created in the neighboring country and the victims, the Spanish National Police said in a statement.

These call centers were located in Madrid and the Malaga region, the police added, specifying it 25 house searches were carried out total. In the three carried out in Spain, 17,000 euros ($17,700) and 33 mobile phones were seized.

according to the newspaper the Parisians, the network has installed presence detectors and cameras to record customers when they pay for the service. Furthermore, the French commissioner explained that the women “had to give an account by message after each function”.

In order for the victims to “fully” devote themselves to the customers, other members of the network took care of their food, transportation and safety.

The researchers estimate that the network has collected approx minimum five million euros ($5.3 million) per year with the sexual exploitation of victims, although estimates can go up to “20 to 30 million euros” ($20.8 to 31.3 million).

Network members and women equally split the money for services, which the latter mainly use to reimburse travel expenses in Europe and then send remittances to their families.

For Elvire Arrighi, who coordinated the operation, women were “under the influence” of this network, “because they would never have won those sums, up to 250 euros per day“, remaining in their countries of origin.

The network’s debt collectors in France were in charge of sending the money in cash to Spain, where it was laundered, before being transferred to Colombia, where the two network bosses lived comfortably.

“This case is historica library, both for the functioning and size of the network and for the quality of international cooperation”, praised the head of OCRTEH.

Source: AFP