German cops crack down on Thai prostitution ring

FRANKFURT: German authorities searched 62 brothels, offices and homes in several federal states and arrested seven people in a crackdown on suspected human trafficking in connection with a Thai prostitution ring, prosecutors said.

Police said on Twitter that the raids yesterday, which involved more than 1,500 officers, prosecu- tors and tax officials, represented the biggest mass search in the history of the federal force.

The investigation turned up 56 people, aged 26 to 66, who were suspected of crimes related to human trafficking, forced prostitution, pimping, withholding of wages and tax evasion, the Frankfurt general prosecutor’s office said.

Prosecutors suspected that a number of people, led by a 59-yearold Thai woman and her 62-year-old German partner, brought women and transsexuals from Thailand to Germany on tourist visas and forced them into prostitution.

The woman was suspected of keeping money the prostitutes earned, supposedly to cover the cost of bringing them to Germany, as well as for room and board at brothels in the town of Siegen, and of passing them on to brothels elsewhere.

“The investigation has so far identified 32 women and transsexuals who were smuggled into Germany and who allegedly worked in the brothels as prostitutes,” the prosecutor’s office said.