THE WEATHER
Edition 325
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Friday 9th June 2017
DONE AND DUSTED
ne of the fixers for a Torrevieja-based sex trafficking gang that used the threat of voodoo rituals to force Nigerian women into a life of prostitution has been arrested by Italian police, with the detention ending a two-year National Police operation against the trafficking gang. The detained man was in charge of taking the women from refugee camps in Italy and would then put them up in apartments, before arranging their onward journey to Spain. The fixer would then travel with them so as to get his payment directly from the traffickers in the Torrevieja area. In April last year, 11 people were arrested in Spain, Italy, and Morocco, as well as 39 victims of the Torrevieja-based gang being freed (pictured). One of those detained was a British national who lived in a cara-
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van in the Torrevieja area, with the group also using a pastor of a local church as a front for some of their work. The gang was led by five woman who, according to the National Police, used the pastor from a Torrevieja church to increase their domination of the exploited females. The clergyman apparently knew the circumstances of the forced prostitutes and where they lived, and hid
documents about them in his church, as well as getting paid by the gang for his services. If the trafficked women refused to listen to orders, including not getting the right amount of money for their sexual services, they would only be fed bread and subjected to voodoo rituals in which they were forced to swallow dirty water with sand in it, as well as being forced to walk naked around
the houses they lived in. The woman were also threatened with death if they went to the police to complain. After the release of the victims in April 2016, the National Police,in conjunction with their Moroccan counterparts, successfully moved to shut down a human trafficking route run by Nigerian nationals that smuggled women into Spain in boats across the Straits of Gibraltar.
BRIT’S GUARDIA HIT
drunk and drugged up British car thief violently assaulted a Guardia Civil officer at their barracks in
Pilar de la Horadada, after he had been let out of the cells to go to the toilet. The officer had to be taken to
hospital with serious neck and face injuries, but is said to be recovering well. The incident happened on Tuesday when the owner of a stolen mustard-coloured classic Ford Escort car, worth around 15 thousand euro, went to the Guardia’s Pilar barracks to report the theft. The owner got a call from a friend that had spotted the distinctly coloured vehicle in the area, and the Guardia launched a search over a period of hours before finding the car being
driven by a 35-year-old man who was worse for wear with alcohol and drugs. He was taken to Pilar, and after time in the cells, the unidentifed Brit committed the assault after asking for a toilet break. Two Guardia officers had to pull him off their colleague, and now the car thief finds an additional charge of assaulting a “figure of authority” added to one of vehicle theft. The Ford Escort owner will have his car returned to him in the next view days.
See page 2 for the week´s forecast