DETECTIVES from the organised crime police squad in Prague have busted a gang of traffickers in women who operated across the Czech Republic, the Czech Television (ČT) public station reported on September 6.
The group worked with procurers in Norway and earned tens of millions of crowns by selling young Czech and Slovak women abroad, ČT said.
"We detained the members of four Romany families who organised prostitution across the country," police spokeswoman Blanka Kosinová told ČT.
The procurers allegedly bought young girls directly from Romany families, mostly in north and central Moravia and in Slovakia. When the girls proved efficient in the Czech Republic they sent them to Norway to earn money.
"The girls had a fixed sum they had to earn through prostitution in Oslo daily.
It was the equivalent of 12,000 Czech crowns," a detective told ČT, adding that the girls certainly earned more than that sum.
"Police monitoring over six months registered a total sum of 12 million crowns [in earnings by the prostitutes]," Kosinová said, adding that the procurers had used the same prostitutes for several years.
Police detained and brought charges against 16 people for organising the traffic in women, and did not rule out that other suspects would be detained in the Czech Republic and abroad. According to ČT, more than 160 policemen were involved in the operation.
- from press reports
