Guardia officers and European forces break up international sex slavery trafficking group

GUARDIA CIVIL officers with help of other European forces have broken up an international group dedicated to trafficking women for sex slavery.

Police claim the group had prostituted more than 40 Romanian women in Portugal, Germany, France, Romania, Italy and Spain.

They have released 13 victims who were allegedly being exploited in Spain and forced to work 14 hour days.

Officers have arrested 20 people in the ongoing operation, 18 of which were in Cataluña and Valencia.

The alleged leader of the organisation, after having fled to different European countries, recently handed himself in in Girona.

Investigators claim members of the organisation used the ‘loverboy method’.

The method involves wooing victims and promising them a better life in Spain.

The investigation began in February 2018, after one woman reported to the Guardia Civil that she was being forced into prostitution in streets controlled by the group.