Human TraffickingNews

Dismantled a criminal organization that sexually exploited victims captured in Colombia through deception

The Spanish Civil Guard and National Police have carried out what has been called operation “MALUS SOMNIA-MESO”, an investigation focused on a criminal organization dedicated to the recruitment of women in Colombia, for their subsequent transfer and sexual exploitation in Spain, using for this, the formula of deception and taking advantage of the situation of need in which the victims found themselves in their countries of origin.

The deceived victims were transferred from their countries of origin to Spain, using letters of invitation issued by people close to the organization.

Once in Spain, the victims were placed in different homes, being forced to have sexual relations with different “clients”, without having their fundamental rights respected.

All the victims were extorted and forced to pay supposed “debts” acquired with the organization, threatening them with harming relatives in their countries of origin if they did not agree to the impositions of their captors.

Exploited in different Spanish provinces

This organization, of international scope, was looking for victims in a precarious economic situation whom they deceived. To do this, it used “captors” in the countries of origin (Colombia), who offered the victims promises of a new life and with the expectation of earning a lot of money in a very short time.

Within our country, the geographical scope of action in which the investigated organization operated was framed in different provinces, with the research focusing on those of Ciudad Real and Granada.

When the victims arrived in Spain, their personal documentation was taken from them and they were transferred to homes, where they were systematically forced to consume narcotic substances during their long hours of service, as well as to offer them to their “clients”.

To carry out the exploitation of the victims, the members of the organization published advertisements on different web pages, having checked more than 3,000, using different telephone numbers.

Five victims released and three witnesses protected

At the end of last month, the exploitation of the operation was carried out, freeing a total of five women of different nationalities, who were being sexually exploited.

As a result of this investigation, three people appear as protected witnesses in this proceeding, who have been captured, transferred and later sexually exploited by the organization investigated in our country. The potential victims controlled by this criminal group in recent years, amount to more than 30 women of different nationalities, all of them in a clear situation of vulnerability and need.

Six people arrested and three investigated

The operation has resulted in the arrest of six people, four women, three of them of Colombian nationality and one Spanish, and two men of the same nationalities, as well as three people investigated, all of them in the provinces of Ciudad Real and Granada .

All of them are being investigated for crimes of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering, belonging to a criminal organization and crimes against public health.

Investigators have carried out a total of four home searches in homes related to the criminal structure, where a large amount of documentation and effects of interest for the investigation intervened, highlighting numerous receipts of money transfers to third countries, which show the important economic amount that the criminal group earned through the victims, as well as the way to launder these profits.

The operation has been directed by the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 1 of Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real) and carried out by agents of the Provincial Brigade of Immigration and Borders of the National Police of Ciudad Real (Operational Group Against Human Trafficking) and the Human Trafficking Section of the Civil Guard’s Central Operational Unit (UCO), both bodies having the fundamental support of their respective Police Stations and Commanderies of the Ciudad Real and Granada provinces.