Prostitution ring busted

Ringleader sent straight to prison

GUARDIA Civil in Villena have arrested six members of a gang and charged them with alleged crimes of sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, money laundering, a crime against workers’ rights and also belonging to a criminal organisation.

The two ringleaders were sent straight to prison.

The police investigation began at the end of last August when officers from the Guardia Civil’s judicial police unit in Villena became aware of the existence of an apartment in Castalla where women were being prostituted. Officers discovered that this apartment was ‘managed’ by an Italian who had a police record following his arrest in 2006 for sexual exploitation crimes.

Thanks to the investigation, officers were able to prove that those arrested made money through the sexual exploitation of women.

Their modus operandi consisted in the victims, from mainly third countries (Paraguay, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Columbia, Mexico, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia) being enticed via a wide network of advertisements published on websites specialising in prostitution services. There were also a few Spanish victims.

To make the women prostitute themselves, the gang leader discovered their vulnerable points, be it an economic problem or other personal issues and exploited them.

In 2019, 25 women were exploited sexually by the gang; as well as working out of the Castalla apartment (advertised extensively online), they visited clients at their homes in Alicante, Sax, Banyeres de Mariola, Villena, Alcoy, Muro de Alcoy, Jijona, Campo de Mirra, Ibi and even Caudete in Albacete province.

Three men were tasked with driving the women around to their home visits 24 hours a day. Two women of Romanian and Cuban nationality were the ‘madams’, through whom the main gang leader controlled the women in the apartment, in terms of distribution, organisation and instructions regarding the services they had to carry out in their clients’ homes.

Guardia Civil investigators have been able to discover, after investigating the gang leaders accounts, that he had made €20,000 in 10 months from prostituting the women. To enhance his earnings, he set up a parallel business to complement the prostitution service by offering clients cocaine.

To this end, he used the services of a 70-year-old man from Ibi, who was in charge of distributing drugs all over the Foia de Castalla region to regular consumers who had ordered their drugs by phone.

During the last phase of the investigation, the ringleader decided to open a bar in Ibi, from where he continued trafficking with cocaine and, to launder his illegal proceeds through his new ‘legal" business.

This is when, officers decided they had enough to have a case against the organisation and searched three locations – the bar, the Castalla apartment and another apartment in Ibi, finding 40 grams of rock cocaine, 10 grams of cocaine ready to sell, in sachets, various ingredients used to cut the drug as well as 86 male and 12 female Viagra pills, 11 smartphones and €2,890 euros in cash. They also blocked seven bank accounts. In addition, officers have found abundant paperwork, which continues to be analysed.

So far, a total of 6 people have been arrested: Five men (two Italians and three Spaniards) between 72 and 46 years of age and a 31-year-old Romanian woman. The investigation remains open and further arrests are possible.