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Edition 269
A
Friday 29th April 2016
IT’S ALL GO!
two point eight million euro tender for the
uncompleted Emergency Centre at La Zenia serving the Orihuela Costa is set to be advertised by the Valencian regional government before the summer, according to the PSOE/Socialist opposition leader on Orihuela council, Carolina Gracia. The centre was going to house the local Police and Guardia Civil, as well as being a base for the fire and ambulances services in addition to the local Civil Protection group, but the
contractor went bankrupt just months into the development six years ago. Over one hundred demonstrators went to the site last December to vent their anger that the project remained stalled. Gracia said that the centre should be completed by the end of 2017, after revealing that she had met with the head of Valencia’s emergency department, José María Ángel, and had received a full briefing on the project. She added that
the government will how arrange a meeting with Orihuela’s Partido Popular mayor, Emilio Bascuñana, to discuss the details on completing the project, which currently is a concrete skeletal structure next to the Consum supermarket in La Zenia. Gracia added the Valencian authorities will appoint somebody to supervise the project and to check the state of the incomplete structure as well as adapting the completion work to fit current laws.
RING OF SHAME Children Used In Local Prostitution Racket
T
he National Police have rescued 18 Nigerian women who were forced into prostitution in the Torrevieja area with 30 arrests being made, as agents smashed a vice ring that operated in the city, with the strings being pulled from Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. 18 of those arrested were denied bail, with police raids being made in Torrevieja, Orihuela, Cartagena, as well as further afield in the Madrid and Valencia areas. One of those held was a British national who lived in a caravan in the Torrevieja area, with the group also using a pastor of a local church as a front for some of their work. Authorities say that over 50 women, many of whom were children, were exploited by the gang. Money made from the prostitution racket was sent back to
Nigeria to fund the expansion of their operation, with the National Police launching their investigation over a year ago after getting a complaint from a Nigerian woman in Malaga who told them about the way she was abused by the gang. Women were forced to work on Torrevieja’s streets every day for at least twelve hours from late afternoon until the following dawn, and were not allowed to return to their homes before sunrise. Once in their houses, they were denied sleep because the gang leaders forced them to work as caregivers for the elderly and to clean and cook for them. If orders were disobeyed, including not getting the right amount of money for their sexual services, they would only be fed bread and subjected to voodoo rituals in which they were forced to swallow dirty
BY ALEX TRELINSKI water with sand in it, as well as being forced to walk naked around the houses they lived in. The women were also threatened with death if they went to the police to complain. The Nigerian gang was part of a prostution cartel in Torrevieja, having regular meetings with other gangs to decide on which areas they would operate in and to fix prices to avoid any danger of anybody undercutting each other. The gang was
led by five woman who, according to the National Police, used a pastor from a Torrevieja church to increase their domination of the exploited females. The clergyman apparently knew the circumstances of the forced prostitutes and where they lived, and hid documents about them in his church, as well as getting paid by the gang for his services. The women were also forced to pay the pastor directly.