Police smash large sex ring
Two days after breaking up a gang that smuggled Eastern European women into Greece to work as sex slaves, police said yesterday they had arrested 14 members of a similar ring, which was bigger and more highly organized. Attica police said they had arrested 11 Greek and three foreign suspected gang members, believed to have lured at least 28 young women from impoverished Eastern European countries to Greece over the past five months – ostensibly to work in bona fide positions. Once in the country, the victims were locked up in Athens flats, raped, beaten and forced to work as prostitutes, while the gang took all their earnings. Two of the women were underage. Warrants have been issued against another eight suspects. During a raid on a Nea Smyrni office used by the gang, police seized a computer containing a list of 15,000 clients, with their names, phone numbers and sexual tastes. Officers also seized six handguns, a shotgun, a rifle, handcuffs and a police badge. Apparently, gang members posed as policemen, to further intimidate their victims.
