Foreign criminal organizations specialized in assaults on businesses and homes on our borders have been doing what is called criminal tourism for years: they come from their countries (for example, in Eastern Europe, taking advantage of the bonanzas of the Schengen area) to Spain and, for a few months, they blow up targets and then return to their homelands, until the next one. This is what is known as itinerant property crime and for which the National Police has a special group at UDEV.
Well, it is now the prostitution mafias that are operating in a similar way, in which, especially in the case of repeat women, the fact that the victims are involuntarily exploited is overshadowed, explain the police sources consulted by ABC. Groups of prostituted girls take advantage of the ninety-day permit that tourists have to visit our country so that they are put to work (what is commonly called) on the streets, although with certain nuances. And then return to the places where they come from.
The end of the pandemic brought many changes in crime. And the trafficking mafias have reinvented themselves to take advantage of the situation of economic and social vulnerability of some women under 35 years of age who reside in difficult places in Venezuela, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. Until now, the usual thing was for them to stay in Spain, supposedly, while they paid a debt that never stopped growing; a Machiavellian wheel of exploitation in which his destiny in the medium-long term was to continue being cannon fodder for the mafias. That reality continues, but more and more people are making round trips.
Sources in the fight against human trafficking explain to this newspaper that the framework model of one of these gangs is made up of a leader, usually male and older, who has a staff of cyber-captors. They can be up to dozens. They are dedicated to browsing social media profiles such as Instagram or TikTok in search of potential young women to prostitute. “Sometimes, they are the ones who first uploaded a publication or a story to their accounts requesting work, offering themselves for any type of work, in principle as caregivers, house cleaning or hospitality,” from their places of origin, says one of the most senior experts.
What happens is that more and more recruiters reach out to them through these profiles and offer them to come to our country to, directly, work as companions or ‘scorts’, that anglicism that is nothing more than a euphemism for the people who They are prostitutes. Economic desperation, in many cases; or the desire to make quick money, in others, lead them to accept.
According to a UN report, “people who do not enjoy legal status; who live in poverty; who have limited access to education; to health care or a decent job; who suffer discrimination; violence or abuse; or who come from marginalized communities are often the main targets of traffickers.
The organizations advise them, as in other illegal immigration matters for other purposes and which are now under investigation, on the steps they should take. The necessary and minimum per diem to enter, for example. Once they enter through the Barajas airport towards our borders, they do so as tourists (and this is how they explain it if they are asked about it by the Police at immigration controls). They do not usually come alone, but in groups of three or four women and on the same flight, which may or may not be paid for by the mafia. It all depends on the previous ‘agreement’. Venezuelan and Colombian women have not needed a visa for a long time, unlike Dominican women. But getting into Spain like this is very easy. Or, as our sources summarize, “the country has become an impressive drain” for this and other tasks bordering on or directly outside the law.
Difficult investigations
«It is not that there is more prostitution than before, but that the proliferation of these cases through social networks is causing a real headache for the authorities. “They are killing us,” summarize the consulted experts: “They arrive in Madrid, where they can stay for maybe 15 days, and then continue on to Barcelona, ​​Alicante or the Costa del Sol.” They are received by the bosses and generally taken to apartments, where police control is not more difficult, but rarely ends successfully. Although they are being used as brothels, the constitutional inviolability of homes is too high a bar for these investigations. They need, unlike those who are exploited on public roads (which are fewer than before the pandemic), a court order to enter the houses and, in addition, the incriminating testimony of the victims against their executioners, which is almost more complicated to achieve. The procedure is similar to the dismantling of narco-stories, ‘protected’ by article 18 of our Magna Carta.
Furthermore, this does not prevent the day after an operation that comes to fruition, a brothel from being set up again in that same house, as has been happening for a decade in the two famous blocks on Paseo de las Delicias.
The other option is the one that until not long ago was in the doldrums: taking the girls to work in the usual hostess clubs. Until the 90 days are up and they can no longer legally remain in Spain; They return to their country, because the trafficking networks are aware that it is cheaper and causes them less headache to recruit other victims and get the wheels turning again. “Of course, the ‘volunteers’ of this type of organization do not move drugs,” our informants point out as a differentiating point from those against whom violence is carried out.
The debate on the abolition or legalization of prostitution in Spain has not yet crystallized into law. The two majority parties, PSOE and PP, are abolitionist, but have not yet taken a step forward in this regard. In Sweden, there has been legislation in this regard since 1999, which was tightened in 2018 with a sexual crimes law that considers that whoremongers can, in some cases, fall into the crime of rape. “And we are seeing how many of these men are coming to Spain to pay to be with women, as there is no legislation on the matter,” adds a police expert.
Trafficking and pimping are criminally prosecutable in Spain. On January 3, the Madrid Police Headquarters informed the former that they were being forced to sleep with clients in different apartments in our region. They were also subjected to a regime of merciless slavery: they had practically no days of rest, they had to camouflage menstruation with bath sponges, and they were fed just enough so that they did not gain weight. All this, in the context of one of the most advanced societies on the planet, around the corner of any citizen of Madrid.
Census of prostituted women
A criminal organization in which they were prohibited from going to the doctor and where clients could force them to consume drugs. Three organizations were in charge of this seraglio, in which women or ‘mamis’ were the majority (nine of the twelve detainees). They controlled at least half a dozen brothel apartments in whose records the Police also found pills against sexual impotence, cocaine, money and passports. (anti-trafficking telephone number, which leaves no trace, 900105090, and email: [email protected]).
One of the characteristics of this mafia and, in general, of many that operate in Madrid is the use of social networks and the internet to promote the despicable business. The previous Ministry of Consumer Affairs legislated the prohibition of advertising of the paid sex business, in its fight against trafficking; Dozens of websites offering escort and massage services have been removed, terms used by exploiters to try to circumvent the legislation in this regard. Last September, a study by the Ministry of Equality concluded that in Spain there are 114,576 women in prostitution, although this figure, like the fact that 80% or 90% of these people are forced, is disputed. It is very difficult to know the true data: more than 650,000 data from websites of these advertisements were analyzed, as it is a hidden population that is difficult to access.
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