BRATISLAVA, April 27, (WEBNOVINY) — The Slovak police has completed its investigation of a criminal group involved in escort services business. The investigator has proposed filing charges against the group’s members, accusing ten people of establishing a criminal group and human trafficking. Since 2000, at least 150 girls and women were offered hostess jobs, but in fact ended up abroad as prostitutes, mostly in Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Japan and the UK. In Nitra, the group established an agency in the year 2000 officially offering hostess jobs, ELI, with branches opening later in Prague and Bratislava. The agency’s owners earned 900,000 to 1.3 million euro over time.
Members of the group were recruiting girls who could work for them. As Police Presidium spokeswoman Andrea Dobiasova told SITA news agency, they initially did not disclose the true character of the job to the girls and only did so after the contract was signed. All employees had more or less naked photographs of them taken which were later used for blackmailing them. When employees refused participating in sexual practices or to cooperate with the agency after having their contracts signed, they were threatened by high fines and publishing the incriminating photographs.
The group was already accused in 2004, currently the investigation has been completed. Nine people could be sentenced to twelve to fifteen years, the photographer to three to ten years.
sita
