Thanks to a joint investigation by German and Spanish law enforcement officers, a human trafficking gang (which consisted of men from Romania between the ages of 18 and 48) has been arrested in the city of Alzira in Spain. According to sources, the gang kidnapped a prostitute from a strip club and has forced over 20 women into human trafficking using mental and physical abuse. Keep on reading the article till the end if you want to find out more about this now!
- Previously, we reported about a strip club kidnapping incident here on the Sex Club Wien blog that involved human trafficking. Click on the following link to read that news article now: Prostitute kidnapped from bordell by three men in Augsburg
The police investigation started at a strip club
The investigation against members of this human trafficking gang has started back in January, 2018 when a 22 year old prostitute was kidnapped from in front a strip club in Saarbrücken. According to police reports, the young Romanian woman was abducted by two Romanian men (25 and 30 year olds). She was taken by the men to Valencia in Spain where she was forced back into prostitution.
Later that year, investigations uncovered another kidnapping case done by the same human trafficking gang. Two Romanian prostitutes had been abducted from a strip club in Neunkirchen by a 21 year old Romanian man. The abductor used the Loverboy method to lure the girls to come with him. He lured the young women to Valencia and forced them to work for him as prostitutes. The 21 year old man was arrested in October the same year and delivered to Saarbrücken for sentencing. The man was jailed for 23 months of prison for his crimes.
- If you are not familiar with the term Loverboy, be sure to read the article that we published on the subject: The Loverboy Method
In 2019, after two Romanian men were arrested because of a vehicle accident (and stabbing attempt), law enforcers were able to link them to the Romanian human trafficking gang. The police acquired information about the previous incidents and about the gang’s operations. After this arrest, the gang’s human trafficking activities have completely moved to Spain.
German and Spanish police fight against human trafficking together
As a means to stop this gang of human traffickers, the German and the Spanish police formed an investigation group together which was titled “Operation Palmera”. This international investigation group consisted of officers from Spain, Germany, as well as from Eurojust and Europol. The officers were able to identify the group as an Eastern European gang consisting of men between the ages of 18 and 48. The gang has been doing their human trafficking operations from at least 2016 and they mainly lured young women using the Loverboy method.
The police were able to identify 17 women who were forced into prostitution by this gang. The girls were physically and mentally abused by the Romanian gang and forced into prostitution on the streets of Alzira and Valencia in Spain. According to our sources, the gang of 16 members had been arrested and the trafficked girls had been released from their pimps.
Human trafficking in Austria
There’s no real way to fully eradicate human trafficking and forced prostitution, but Austria’s well regulated prostitution laws are a great countermeasure. Because of this, there are far fewer cases of human trafficking in Austria and other countries where prostitution is legal, but well regulated. Other parts of the world, such as Spain, where prostitution is not controlled in this manner became targets of similar human trafficking gangs, such as the one we reported about in this article.
- Read the following article if you want to learn about other prostitution laws in Austria: Austria about to Ban Sex Work for Refugees
Conclusion
Thanks to the dedicated and collective work of the law enforcement agents that were involved in this investigation, this human trafficking gang has been apprehended and stopped. However, there are countless other similar gang operations going on around the world where prostitution laws are not as well regulated as in Austria or similar countries. Human trafficking and pimping is still a very prominent problem that we are facing and there are millions of women around the world who are forced into prostitution by similar gangs.
This post has been written based on a German publication on the Völklingen im Wandel website. Click on the link if you want to read the original source post.
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