BRUSSLES: Belgian police arrested 25 suspects in raids targeting an international ring allegedly trafficking Chinese sex workers.
The swoop on two dozen addresses in several Belgian cities discovered more than 20 such victims.
“It’s one of the biggest interventions in recent years in human trafficking circles,” a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecution service, Eric Van Duyse said.
Virtually all those detained were of Chinese background, and three of them had Belgian citizenship.
According to prosecutors, the ring recruited women in China and moved them to Europe, where they were “sexually exploited, mostly in private prostitution” through specialised websites.
The organisation allegedly used online rentals of hotels and holiday homes for the activity, and kept the lion’s share of the money generated by the women for itself.
Many of the women said to have been used by the gang were without valid European residency papers, “which increased their dependency” on the organisation.
They were “often moved around Europe” and the organisation’s revenues were said to be transferred abroad through “legal and illegal” means. — AFP
