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THE INDEPENDENT ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER WITH LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Special Summer EDITION 579
FRIDAY 30th JUNE TO THURSDAY 20th JULY 2017 TV GUIDE
PAGES 25 -32
MOVIES AT ...
FORTNIGHTLY SUPPLEMENT F
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PAGES 49 -56
guide
Tenerife link to shocking voodoo prostitution gang PETTY THEFTS FROM TOURISTS IN THE SOUTH
A
Nigerian network of trafficking and sexual exploitation of women in Spain had a base in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, police have confirmed following raids in El Fraile, Arona.
The popular beach at El Medano
“No risk” at El Médano beach after e-coli scare I
NVESTIGATIONS are underway to find out why several beaches in the south of Tenerife had to be closed temporarily because of contamination levels. The closures were ordered as a precaution, even though the e-coli bacteria found during tests was only slightly over the permitted norm. There was particular disappointment when the very popular beach at El Medano was closed twice, causing considerable upset for holidaymakers and families
with children during the school break. The El Medano beach, specifically the stretch from Playa Chica to Los Balos, has since been reopened with Granadilla council giving an assurance that the water is now totally safe for bathers. The checks were taken by the Canary Islands Health
Inspection Service. Councillor for municipal services, Marcos González says the beach was closed on two occasions “as a precautionary measure, in order to guarantee the welfare and safety of the population and bathers.” “There is no risk to health,” he assured. Nevertheless, extensive checks continue to be carried out and the council has asked an external company to investigate what happened.
Granadilla wants to know if the situation was in any way linked to closures at Santa Cruz, Güímar and Candelaria. The investigation will determine if there was a discharge or an internal rupture of the sanitation network. At one stage, Candelaria had to close four beaches after spots appeared on the coastline. Las Teresitas in Santa Cruz also had to be closed for a short while for the same reason.
Fatal knife attack in Santa Cruz A
50-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a knife attack in Santa Cruz.
The victim is another man, aged 25. Both are thought to be residents of the Ofra district of the capital. The incident happened just after 8.30pm outside a 24-hour shop located on the Rosario road with its link with avenida Príncipes de España. Police said both men were sitting on a bench when an argument and some sort of fight broke out between them. It ended up with the 25-year-old being stabbed “several times in the back” and dying at the scene. The suspect was arrested there afterwards and the alleged weapon was also seized.
The criminal gang also operated in Italy, Germany and Belgium and subjected their victims, captured in Nigeria, to voodoo curses. They had links in Madrid, Tenerife, Bilbao, Cáceres and Benidorm (Alicante). Eighteen people have been arrested in total following a series of raids in these locations when more than 18,800 euros was seized. Police said once the victims were moved into Europe, they were forced to engage in prostitution and commit petty theft in the streets. “The women were accompanied by members of the organisation throughout the land route to Libya, from where they were taken to Italy in precarious vessels and later to our country by air,” said a spokesman. The leader of the group, a Nigerian woman established in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), was in charge of teaching the victims to apply for asylum in Spain and thus to prolong their stay in the country. Investigations began when police detected that a young girl, who went to a police station to apply for asylum, could be a victim of trafficking. “During the investigative work it was possible to establish the existence of a deep-rooted structure that operated in several countries. In Spain, the network operated
in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Madrid and internationally in Belgium, Libya and Italy. A victim was also found in Germany.” As well as being forced into prostitution, the women were forced to carry out petty crime in areas such as the affluent tourist zones of south Tenerife in order to pay off their debts. “In cases where the victims did not make enough money, they were sent to other European countries such as Italy, Belgium and Germany, where they were also exploited under the control of people close to the organisation,” said the police. In the course of the investigation, it was revealed how another of the victims travelled from Tenerife to Madrid to stay at the home of the main defendants. The agents verified that she had been captured by the organisation a year and a half before when they contacted her in Nigeria and offered her the chance to come to Spain, which assumed a debt of 35,000 euros with the pimps. Before starting the trip, the victim was subjected to a voodoo rite in her home country to “bend her will” and obtain a guarantee on the payment of the debt, as well as threatening to kill her if she denounced the facts or broke the agreement.