A vast Romanian prostitution network active in France was dismantled on Tuesday March 22 with the arrest of five men in Romania and two in France, during a joint police operation with Romania and Spain, learned AFP to the Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings.
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It is the important lifestyle that the defendants led in Romania as well as their financial surfaces which did not correspond to their income which attracted the attention of the police, explained to AFP the commissioner Elvire Arrighi, chief of the office.
They traveled in luxury cars, were at the head of companies and owned buildings.
The investigation for “
trafficking in human beings in an organized gang
” was opened in 2020 and entrusted to the Office after referral to the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction of Marseille (JIRS).
Twenty-eight victims found
Aged 20 to 30, the defendants, settled in Spain, attracted young Romanians of the same age as them using the “
Lover boy
” technique.
They seduced their victims, making them dangle a life of luxury with them.
They made them come to Spain, then installed them in France in apartments where they forced them to prostitute themselves.
“
Almost every week, they came to France and made them change cities
,” continued the commissioner.
Twenty-eight victims were found on Tuesday in apartments in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier, Limoges and Tours.
Thirteen of them were heard by the investigators, who then put them in contact with associations.
At the same time in Romania, French and Spanish police arrested with their Romanian colleagues five men suspected of belonging to the network, all targeted by a European arrest warrant.
The latter had decided to leave Spain last summer to resettle in Romania.
One of them is considered by Europol as a top target, according to Elvire Arrighi.
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In France, two men were arrested in Marseille and Montpellier.
During the searches, 29,000 euros were seized in France.
The five arrested in Romania will be handed over to French justice in the coming days.