Prostitution has always been a profitable business, so there are many criminal groups that exploit vulnerable women. In the last period, the brothels which operate outside of the law started to spread inside Linz. The police started a major campaign in order to identify and shut down all these unauthorized brothels. Read the full article if you want to find out what is the authorities’ strategy.

The Linz police department started a major action against unauthorized brothels

Everybody knows that offering or paying sexual services is legal in Vienna. The main issue is that a lot of women are exploited and forced to work in filthy conditions. The Linz police triggered an intense action with the purpose to identify all the brothels that are running illegally. According to investigators, in the last period, numerous unauthorized brothels were found. On top of that, the women were forced to take drugs. In addition, the girls were promised a decent job, but they ended up working 24/7 as prostitutes.  This is a red flag for the local decision-makers and a solution must be found. A positive aspect is that almost every two weeks an unauthorized brothel was identified and closed.

Airbnb was the rental company used by the traffickers for their business

According to our information, the women who were constrained to work as prostitutes were from Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria. The traffickers managed to avoid the police by changing the location on a regular basis. This strategy was successful for a long period of time. Almost all the apartments were rented through Airbnb because it was the easiest method to cheat the system. Airbnb is the most important rental company and its representatives promised they will take the necessary actions in order to prevent “pop-up brothels” at its rental properties. The company will cooperate with the police and they will try to develop new systems to identify signs of modern slavery.

Conclusion

Illegal brothels have become a threat to vulnerable women who come from poor countries. They are slightly lured by human traffickers. Almost all the prostitutes were told they will have a decent job, but they became modern slaves. This is growing at a fast rate and the authorities must take action. We are hopeful the responsible persons will be convicted as in the case of FKK Paradise in Stuttgart. Previously, we reported that Liesing police organized a raid in order to diminish street prostitution.

Kronen Zeitung and The Telegraph are two publications which have written articles about the same topic.