German police bust Thai prostitution ring

Police officers lead women to a police van in Siegen, central Germany, on Wednesday. (dpa via AP photos)

BERLIN: German authorities say they have raided 62 properties and arrested seven people in an investigation of an alleged trafficking ring set up to bring Thai women and transsexuals to Germany to work as prostitutes.

Prosecutors in Frankfurt said raids were conducted across Germany on Wednesday. They said the chief suspects are a 59-year-old Thai national and her 62-year-old German partner, who are suspected of setting up the network.

Officials say the couple ran three brothels in the western town of Siegen where the Thais, who entered Germany on fraudulently obtained tourist visas, were initially put to work as prostitutes before being sent on to other towns.

Their wages allegedly were largely retained by the suspects, supposedly to cover the cost of bringing them to Germany as well as for room and board at several brothels in Siegen, and of eventually passing them on to brothels elsewhere.

According to another report, those brought to Germany "had to hand over 100% of their wages to the operators of the respective 'massage parlours' to pay off their smuggling fee" of between 16,000 and 36,000 euros (625,000-1.4 million baht).

Prosecutors say they so far have evidence that 32 Thais were trafficked into Germany by the group.

Masked police officers leave after searching a brothel in Maintal near Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday.

"The investigation has so far identified a total of 32 women and transsexuals who were smuggled into Germany by the suspects and who allegedly worked in the brothels as prostitutes," the prosecutor's office said.

Federal police spokesman Ralf Stroeher told n-tv television investigators in April last year started looking into the group, “which, according to our investigation so far, trafficked women and transsexuals from Thailand to Germany in over 100 cases.”Police said on Twitter that the raids, which involved more than 1,500 officers, prosecutors and tax officials, represented the biggest mass search in the history of the federal force.

The prostitutes who were found at the brothels were detained, Stroeher said.

Germany, which legalised prostitution in 2002, has sought to regulate brothels more strictly in recent years.

In all, 56 people are under investigation - 41 women and 15 men, aged between 26 and 66. They are suspected of offenses including trafficking foreigners, forced prostitution, pimping, withholding and embezzling wages, and tax evasion.

The main suspects failed to register their workers for social benefits between 2012 and 2017, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors in the western city of Frankfurt, who have been working with police on the case since February 2017, estimate that the ring drew more than one million euros in income.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer praised the operation as an "unprecedented strike against a national organised crime network".

"Several hundred women and men were at the mercy of the inhumane, boundless greed of human smugglers for years and across borders," he said.

"This unscrupulous behaviour and the sexual exploitation on an abominable scale were put to an end today."