The prostitution network consisted of two Hungarian Roma families who, in an organized and violent way, forced young Roma women, including one minor, into prostitution. The victims were sexually exploited in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Three female defendants acted as 'procurers' in the criminal system. As intermediaries, they collected the money of the prostitution victims and did not hesitate to use violence if the victims did not yield enough money. In addition, they searched employment in the window prostitution bars for their victims and took care of their livelihood.
One of the main defendants was also a drug dealer who supplied drugs to some of the co-defendants, prostitution clients and victims.
The detectives screened the financial modus operandi of the prostitution network on the basis of data obtained from telephone tap, observations and money transfers. The procurers checked how much the victims 'yielded' on the basis of the condoms used. They handed the proceeds in cash over to cash couriers who brought the proceeds by car to Hungary, where they were mainly invested in real estate. In addition, the offenders also made international money transfers to Hungary in the name of the victims via the regular financial offices.
The telephone tap supplied objective evidence of violence committed against the victims. Some conversations even included orders to control certain girls, and to beat and threaten them. Furthermore, the extensive internet investigation and the telephone tap revealed that the offenders used Facebook to select the victims on the basis of their pictures and to communicate with them and with each other.
Detectives conducted searches and arrested people in several countries simultaneously. In Belgium, just one search yielded 32 false passports. During a search in Hungary, evidence was found that the prostitution network also recruited girls in the United Kingdom.
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荷兰
大不列颠及北爱尔兰联合王国
匈牙利The defendants/accused persons earned 198,000 euro per month through prostitution activities. One of the main accused persons alone made a monthly profit of 94,500 euro at the expense of six prostitution victims. These were the absolute minima on the basis of the calculation of the criminally acquired assets. The court used these figures as motivation of its decision regarding the total confiscation of 405,980 euro.
In 2012, the Ghent local police had already investigated a number of persons of Hungarian origin who were suspected of human trafficking. Between January 2012 and March 2013, the controls of the Ghent local police revealed a steep increase in the number of young Hungarian prostitutes in the neighborhood of the Ghent South quarter. That was confirmed by the official figures regarding the 'waitresses' in the various window prostitution establishments. In 2009, four Hungarian women were registered. That number increased to 141 in 2012 and even to 283 in 2013. They all appeared to be victims of Roma origin who were in a very precarious situation.
At the end of March 2013, the Ghent police received a rogatory letter from the Amsterdam police regarding one of these Hungarian Roma prostitution victims who was under the control of one of the Hungarian pimps, who was also known to the Dutch police. In April 2014, the Ghent public prosecutor's office decided to start an integrated investigation together with the members of the local and the federal police.
Europol supplied important information, namely that several offenders were also known for human trafficking in other European member states.
Within Europol and Eurojust, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary signed an agreement to create a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) at the end of 2013. At the beginning of 2014, an investigation against the same Hungarian network was also initiated in the United Kingdom.比利时匈牙利荷兰大不列颠及北爱尔兰联合王国Europol supplied important information, namely that several offenders were also known for human trafficking in other European member states.
Within Europol and Eurojust, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary signed an agreement to create a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) at the end of 2013. At the beginning of 2014, an investigation against the same Hungarian network was also initiated in the United Kingdom.
The court recognized forty victims of human trafficking on the basis of the results of the telephone tap. Nearly half of the victims were never located. Most victims made meaningless statements when they were intercepted by the police. At first, the victims did not have much confidence in the police with whom the initial contact was made.
Seventeen victims were later interrogated in Hungary. After the earlier statements they made in Belgium, some victims were interrogated again and made relevant statements after their fear had subsided.
Several victims had already been located and registered as victims of human trafficking in other countries before.Criminal Court of Ghent
- The victims were young Hungarian women of Roma origin. Almost all of them were in a very precarious situation: single mothers, girls who had lived in an orphanage or a shelter until they reached the age of 18.
- The victims were recruited on the pretext of earning large amounts of money in Belgium. Some girls became victims of the so-called 'lover boy' modus operandi or were psychologically coerced to use drugs (speed and coke) to 'perform' better and to suppress the pain and the aversion. At the same time, they were also urged to sell drugs to clients and to use these drugs together with them. Other victims were made to believe that they had to pay back high debts in exchange for their employment, transport, housing and livelihood.
- The offenders constantly repeated to all the victims that they were never to divulge who they were working for. They had to say that they worked independently, without being forced by a pimp or an intermediary, and they were never to mention the identity of the members of the organization. They were also not to divulge how they had arrived in Ghent.
- Several victims had already been detected and previously registered as victims of human trafficking in other countries, which raises the issue of European victim status. A victim was noticed for the first time working in prostitution in Alkmaar (Netherlands) in 2011, followed by Ghent in January 2014, and then seemed to have disappeared. A young, intellectually-impaired 18-year-old woman was extracted from a brothel as a victim by the police in Lancashire (United Kingdom) in May 2013. In August 2013, she was again active in prostitution in Ghent. She was easy prey and allowed herself to be emotionally manipulated by the perpetrators. She had lost both her parents when she was a child, had grown up in an orphanage and thought of one of the defendants as her mother. She wasn’t interested in victim status.
- From various statements, it appeared that even after the arrest of the offenders, the victims were still coerced or cowed into remaining silent. Silence was imposed even from behind bars.