Found guilty of aggravated pimping and human trafficking, five legionnaires and the Ukrainian partner of one of them were sentenced Friday to sentences of up to five years in prison for exploiting dozens of young women Ukrainian and Russian.
Tried since Monday before the Marseille criminal court, five of the six defendants will return behind bars, committal warrants having been issued against them.
The heaviest sentences were handed down against Timofeï Avilov, a 39-year-old Russian who converted to construction after his time in the Foreign Legion, in the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment of the Foreign Legion in Nîmes, and Danil Karpov, 32, his former comrade in arms.
They will also have to pay fines of 20,000 and 30,000 euros respectively for having led this network which covered around forty medium-sized towns across France.
“Low-noise organized crime”
For having played the same managerial role, Sofia Zhuk, 26, Timofey Avilov's partner, was given the same sentence.
But she is expected to stay behind bars longer than them, having only served five months in pre-trial detention compared to two years for the two soldiers.
On Thursday, the prosecutor requested eight years in prison for these three defendants, for what she described as
“real low-profile organized crime”
.
A third Russian legionnaire, Semen Trapeznikov, 30, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros.
For Mourodkhouja Akhmedov, Franco-Uzbek, also in his thirties, accused of having assisted Karpov, his ex-leader in the Legion, the sentence handed down is also three years in prison, but only a 5,000 euro fine.
Also read “I didn’t know she was a prostitute”: the thick web of lies of Sami F. convicted of pimping
Only of the six defendants who remained free after the judgment on Friday, Yevgeni Neoustroev, 30, who helped the Avilov-Zhuk couple, was sentenced to 23 months in prison.
This soldier is the only one still in the Legion, but his contract will end in July.