ISSUE NO. 1669
29 June - 5 July 2017
COSTA BLANCA NORTH
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Human trafficking ring raided
Unshackled By Michael Alexander An international gang of human traffickers with links to Benidorm has been raided following a police probe, with 18 people facing charges. It comes as detectives revealed that the organisation operated in Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany, bringing women from Nigeria to Europe for work as prostitutes and petty thieves. The women were brought to Spain via Libya on refugee boats to Italy, using false documents and passports, then taken to a safe house in Madrid. Once in the country, the women were flown to various parts of the country to work in the sex industry to pay back a so-called debt to the traffickers which amounted to around â‚Ź35,000.
WALKING PREY: The women were intimidated and abused. alerting officers to the belief They were sent to busy she may be a victim of sexutourist areas such as al exploitation. Benidorm and Tenerife, After interviewing the vicwhere they were forced to tim, who had been brought to work the streets and commit the country 18 months previpetty thefts to earn money to ously, the police raided a pay off their debt. house in the capital occupied Before leaving Nigeria the by two Nigerians, where they women were subjected to found evidence to prove the voodoo rituals, which terricouple were operating a fied them into believing they much larger trafficking ring would die if they failed to than first thought. agree to the gang’s demands. Further investigations led The case came to light, to other arrests in Tenerife, when a young girl visited a Bilbao, Caceres and police station in Madrid to Benidorm. make a claim for asylum,
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