Twelve people have been arrested for participating in the sexual exploitation of at least fifty South American women.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
The criminal affair would have reported millions of euros per year. A transatlantic network of pimping, which operated at least fifty women in France, was dismantled Tuesday in France, but also in Spain and Colombia, learned the France-Presse (AFP) agency on Friday December 2 French policewoman.
A couple, head of the network, was incarcerated in Colombia, four men and two women have been arrested in Spain and will soon be handed over to France, and two men and two women must be presented to French justice on Friday , said the same source, confirming information from Parisian and France Inter .
The survey, entrusted since September 2021 to the national jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organized crime (Junalco), was opened for pimping, deals with aggravated human beings, laundering in organized gang and association of criminals, detailed at AFP a judicial source.
Victims aged 20 to 40 were “mainly Colombian and Venezuelan, but also Peru and Paraguay,” said Commissioner Elvire Arright, head of the Central Office for the Repression of the Treats human beings (Ocrteh), who piloted the file. “They were exploited in an absolutely industrial way throughout France”, up to a dozen passes per day, she added.
“call centers”
The network was managed from Colombia by a couple made up of a Venezuelan and a Colombian, who made the victims of recruited victims a better future in Europe and harvested the gains. Two “call centers” in Spain, in Malaga and Madrid, and another in France, were responsible for connecting French customers and victims.
These “had no mastery of their schedule and had to account by message after each performance”, insists M me arright. At the end of the channel, “little hands” took care of logistics – meals, transport, security – “as close as possible to the victims”, so that they “dedicate themselves entirely to the passes”, adds the commissioner.
In total, the network would have pocketed at least 5 million euros per year, but it is “a low range”, according to the Ocrteh head, which the investigators think it can reach “20 million at 30 million euros “.
The commissioner also evokes “unprecedented international cooperation” between France, Colombia and Spain, which shows that “faced with a crime organized without borders, the police can ally, including beyond the oceans “.