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German police today launched their biggest-ever raids against human trafficking rings with 1,500 officers storming brothels and pole-dancing clubs across the country.

The co-ordinated swoops began at 6am and included officers of the elite GSG-9, who are usually deployed in anti-terror operations.

In Siegen, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a Thai woman aged 59 was arrested along with nine others.

The woman is alleged to be the leader of a brutal gang of traffickers bringing in Asian women to Germany to work as sex slaves. Another 62 operations took place in North Rhine-Westphalia, including raids in Gelsenkirchen and Düsseldorf. A police spokesman said GSG-9 officers were involved because “it is typical of people involved in this world to be heavily armed”.

The prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt organised the raids, which had been planned for a year. Police said the criminal gangs took all personal papers and passports from the women, and numerous transsexual slaves, and moved them to brothels and dance bars across the country.

Police said the criminal gangs made millions of euros out of their misery while the women were paid nothing. A total of 60 private homes were also raided during the morning raids.

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“These searches amount to the greatest measures taken since the formation of the German Federal Police,” said authorities in a statement. Among those taken into custody were pimps and forgers responsible for creating the fake visas that allowed the women to be slipped into Germany.

The slaves paid about £25,000 for their visas which they had to “work” off for their masters.