Europol police operation rescues several women held captive in a brothel in Gandia

With help from Europol and the Barcelona City Police, the National Police have broken up a criminal group that was forcing Latin American women to work as prostitutes in brothels in Barcelona and Valencia. The criminal group has branches in Madrid and Gandía and exploited fake job offers and promises of financial security in Spain to recruit women on social media. There have been 12 arrests in Barcelona (10) and Valencia (2), and seven women have been freed. Three of the primary suspects are being held in jail because they are thought to have been involved in crimes against foreign people, drug trafficking, illegal detention, sexual assault, threats, and human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The police inquiry started in March of this year after they checked out a club in downtown Barcelona where several women said they had been exploited in a brothel in the city. A man they had met on social media had taken them there. The victims had to pay 150 euros to take nude or semi-nude photos for what they thought was a job as a model or escort.

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Fake jobs and a 3,000-euro debt

As the inquiry went on, detectives found out about other cases in Valencia, Murcia, and Barcelona that were identical. In all of them, the victims were from different Latin American nations and were persuaded by fraudulent employment offers on social media profiles for modelling agencies or massage and spa centres. The terms included stated incomes of between €1,300 and €2,000 per month, as well as housing, food, and travel. This meant that the criminal network owed between €2,000 and €3,000.

When the victims got to Spain, members of the group took their passports and made them work as prostitutes. The ladies were kept locked up for weeks or months, watched all the time, and not paid anything. They were also told that their families would be punished if they tried to escape. When the victims got to Barcelona, members of the organisation raped and beat them to force them to have sex with “VIP clients.”

Five sex shops

Thanks to a lot of hard work by the police, they have fully broken up the criminal group they were looking into. The network ran five brothels in Barcelona and had subsidiaries in Madrid and Gandía. The recruiter and his assistant were in charge of the logistics of the so-called “modelling agency.”

In the last part of the investigation, the network’s five brothels—four in Barcelona and one in Gandía—were searched, as well as a building in the Catalan capital. There, police found 15,180 euros in cash, a lot of drugs, three expensive watches, a lot of gold jewellery, and papers related to the investigation.

Author: Derek Appleton