Full details on pages 28-29
ISSUE NO. 1650
16 - 22 February 2017
COSTA DE ALMERÍA
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Sex gang smashed Photo by Asociación Comunitá Papa Giovanni XXIII
Women trafficked into Spain for 10 years
WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
Prison punch-up TRADE unions have expressed their concern for the safety of wardens at Almeria’s El Acebuche jail after one was injured while trying to break up a fight earlier this week. The warden entered a cell to separate two fighting inmates and took one outside to calm him down but ended up receiving blows and being taken to hospital for treatment. See page 5
Nuclear option THE Spanish government has admitted it “cannot know” whether Donald Trump and his new government will uphold the agreement regarding clearing contamination from Palomares. In 2015
the US agreed to clear the area still affected by radioactive material from bombs dropped when two US air force planes collided above the province in 1966. See page 9
Fishy affair A RECENT incident which saw hundreds of people temporarily evacuated from their homes in El Patio in Almeria City’s Pescaderia district has served to highlight the abandoned state of the entire area. Local residents say they cannot believe that the council has spent almost €1 million on cleaning up the nearby access areas to the city while ignoring the inside See page 12 of the district.
Poster boy
NIGERIAN WOMEN: Were harshly treated and punished for the slightest infraction. By Simon Firth Police have broken up a gang who specialised in trafficking Nigerian women into Spain as sex workers. It is thought they had been operating their smuggling route for at least 10 years. The women were either hidden in lorries or brought across the Straits of Gibraltar in fast boats. From there they were moved to so-called safe houses before being passed onto groups operating brothels in the south of Spain, including Almeria and Torrevieja. In a joint operation codenamed Odyssey, Spanish Police and Moroccan security agents targeted the criminals
responsible for transporting the women from Nigeria to Morocco. One of the gang was said to be so wealthy he passed through multiple border crossings unhindered while transporting both women and children. The investigations began when a 16-year-old Nigerian girl was found in a children’s centre in Ceuta. She began to give police de-
tails of how she was brought into Spanish territory. When police investigations were completed, seven Nigerians, including two women, were arrested in Spain. They are thought to be responsible for trafficking at least 39 women. Each victim was treated harshly and punished with fines and beatings for the slightest infraction. Police said the women were
forced into sex work for at least 12 hours a day. They were made to eat and sleep together in unhygienic conditions and even forced to take on additional work as cleaners and cooks to bring in extra money. While the Spain-based gang was being disrupted, Moroccan security agents swooped on a property in Tangiers where the women were detained before being smuggled into Spain.
A MAN from Vera is under investigation suspected of putting up slanderous posters all over the Levante area calling the staff of a veterinary clinic criminals and animal murderers. The posters began to appear at the end of January and the Guardia Civil started keeping an eye on the places they were put up. See page 14
Win a Car! YOU CAN STILL BE THE WINNER OF A CAR! SEE PAGES 2, 6 & 7