Cross-Border Police Op Smashes Ring Trafficking Women to Italy
Police in Albania and three European Union countries have dismantled a trafficking ring that forced young women to work as prostitutes in Italy, police in Tirana said Wednesday.
Police in Albania, Italy, Slovakia and Belgium -- the countries in which the alleged ring operated -- arrested 17 Albanian nationals in the joint operation.
"The criminal network is accused of trafficking women from different Eastern European countries to Italy, in the Milan area, for the purpose of sexual exploitation," said Albanian police spokesman Gentian Mullai.
Eleven members of the ring were arrested in Italy, five in Albania and one in Slovakia, Mullai said in a statement.
According to the police, the traffickers recruited young women in Albania and other Eastern European countries under the pretext of finding them a job and would eventually force them into prostitution.
A report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2012 said the Balkan region was the most common origin of people trafficked across borders in Western and Central Europe, accounting for 30 percent of victims.
Source: Agence France Presse
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