12 arrested as 'industrial' translatlantic pimping ring smashed in France
A network spanning from South America to Europe that trafficked women for sex work has been dismantled with a dozen people arrested, French police sources said on Friday.
The network, headed by a Colombian and Venezuelan couple, ran at least 50 sex workers in France, generating annual profits of up to 30 million euros, said a police source.
The couple were arrested in Colombia during Tuesday's police operation.
Four men and two women were detained in Spain, and were to be handed over to the French authorities shortly, the sources added.
Two other men and two women were caught in France and were to appear before a judge Friday.
Pimping is illegal in France, as is the purchase of sexual services.
The arrests followed a more than year-long investigation by the national anti-organised crime unit (Junalco) into the group for suspected pimping, people trafficking and banditry, a judicial source told AFP.
The women, aged between 20 and 40, were "mainly Colombian and Venezuelan, with some from Peru and Paraguay", said Elvire Arrighi, the head of France's office for the fight against human trafficking (OCRTEH).
"They were exploited in an completely industrial manner in France," she said, with each forced to serve up to a dozen clients a day.
'No control'
The couple running the network recruited women by promising them a better life in Europe.
Two call centres in the Spanish cities of Malaga and Madrid, and another in France, served as a client contact platform while the women had "no control over their schedule and had to report back by message after each client", Arrighi said.
The network employed people to look after food, transport and security so that the women "could focus entirely on the clients", the commissioner added. Victims were also kept ignorant of French.
The ring is believed to have pocketed at least five million euros per year, but Arrighi said profits could be "20 to 30 million euros".
She praised what she said had been "unprecedented cooperation" between France, Colombia and Spain to conduct the arrests.