Eight Colombian women who were sexually exploited were rescued in France

On the morning of this Monday, April 11, the Colombian National Police reported the rescue of eight women who were sexually exploited in France. According to the authority, they were being held on 'dating flats' and were 'advertised' on websites. In addition to the citizens' freedom, 13 persons were arrested on charges of allegedly committing crimes related to trafficking in persons, prostitution and membership of a criminal organization. The women were housed in houses located in the town of Roche-sur-Yon.

The money collected by the criminal gang, according to the Police, was' laundered 'and invested in real estate in Oviedo and Zaragoza, in fact they seized 282,000 euros in cash and 40 mobile terminals. In turn, 53,000 euros were seized from current accounts and two homes in France with an estimated value of 340,000 euros.

The rescue and capture operation, called Operation Bogotá, was carried out under the coordination of EUROPOL and by agents of the National Police and the French Police. According to the case file, the criminals captured the victims in Colombia, transferred them to Spain and then took them to France.

“This operation is part of the National Police Plan against Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation. The National Police has the telephone line 900 10 50 90 and the email trata@policia.es to facilitate citizen collaboration and the anonymous and confidential reporting of this type of crime, with the call not being reflected in the telephone bill,” emphasized the Colombian authority.

Women were forced to engage in prostitution in places where they were held, however, they were moved to hotels or homes if the clients of this criminal network so demanded. The latter was a wide possibility for criminals to extend women's time with clients to collect more money.

This case is compounded by what happened in mid-March when two victims of human trafficking, forced into prostitution, escaped from their captors. Thanks to them, eleven people were captured who were responsible for having them detained. Among those captured were six women and five men between the ages of 22 and 52. These people were from different backgrounds, there were Bolivians, Colombians, Dominicans and Argentines. They were all arrested in the Spanish city of Palma.

The complainants assured that the network contacted them in their countries of origin and promised them better living conditions in Spain. They were assured that they would come to European territory to work as home caregivers or housekeepers. When they arrived in Spain, they were transferred to the city of Talavera de la Reina where they took their passports and informed them that they had incurred a debt of 3,000 euros. They were told that they had to prostitute themselves to pay that money because, if they did not, they would retaliate against their relatives.

Already in the hands of that criminal network, they were forbidden to go out on the streets alone and had surveillance all day. The spaces that functioned as brothels operated 24 hours a day every day of the week. They argued that they had only three hours to rest, except for the few hours they were left free, about three hours to rest. Sometimes they were deprived of food and lived crowded in rooms with poor ventilation and no natural light.

From their work they did not receive any money, on the contrary, the profits they made were retained by their captors under the argument of paying off the debt they had acquired when they arrived in the country.

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