Five arrested in prostitution racket crackdown
Five people were arrested late on Thursday during a police operation against human trafficking and pandering, following allegations made a Romanian woman who said she had been coerced into prostituting herself.
The unnamed Romanian woman told police officers that she had been tricked by human traffickers in her country into believing that a job as a hotel chambermaid awaited her in Greece, but that upon her arrival here, illegally, she was threatened and coerced to work as a prostitute.
Following her allegations, police arrested in various parts of Athens four foreign men — three Romanians and an Albanian — as well as a Greek woman for being involved in organized crime, kidnapping and trafficking in human beings. They also conducted raids on four brothels, which the members of the gang admitted to supplying with prostitutes. Twenty people were taken in for questioning during these raids, and four were arrested for failing to produce proper documentation.
The Romanian woman, meanwhile, was staying at the EKKA shelter for victims of trafficking and abuse, and has asked to be deported back to her country.
