A GANG that forced foreign women into prostitution has been busted by the Guardia Civil in northern Spain.
27 people have been arrested in Cantabria while another person is still being investigated in Valencia.
Five of the gang members have been jailed.
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The Guardia’s operation started when they noted a number of foreign women vulnerable to sexual exploitation arriving in the Cantabrian municipalities of Santoña, Argoños and Cicero.
They were taken to homes and were threatened unless they agreed to perform sexual services that evening to clients.
The victims were housed in a club in Argoños, in several flats in Santander and in a villa in Laredo, where they lived in unhealthy conditions.
The Guardia Civil said they had access to basic hygiene and had to put up with rats and live among animal and human excrement.
At least four of the women had been ‘recruited’ abroad, by a person who claimed to be an important businessman.
He offered them a chance to move to Spain with a bogus promise to better their lives with work and housing for themselves and their families.
In addition to exploiting the women, the gang also dabbled in significant quantities of drugs, obtaining narcotics in Valencia and the eastern coast for distribution throughout Cantabria.
Once the drugs arrived in Cantabria, they were hidden in flats in Laredo and Colindres.
They were sold in properties where the prostitutes operated using squatters as sales staff who lived on site.
The product was also trafficked in the eastern area of Cantabria and in Santander.
Another part of the criminal gang’s empire was the illegal occupation of homes in different parts of Cantabria.
They were then ‘rented out’ to vulnerable people or non-Spaniards.
Investigations uncovered around 30 homes that were illegally occupied and the crew even helped their tenants get registered officially at addresses so that they could claim state aid.
Arrests started being executed at the end of September through to this week.
12 homes and establishments have been visited in Cicero, Argoños, Colindres, Santander, Laredo, Santoña and Arnuero, in Cantabria, as well as Chiva in Valencia
Seized items included €30,000 in cash, 24 kilos of marijuana buds from an indoor plantation, and a fake gun.
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