#1 Italy arrests 'human traffickers'... Slavers.
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 6:00 pm
BBC
The CIA has estimated that the traffic of human slaves and illegal selling of childern is the 3rd highest grossing illegal business (between drugs and guns respectivly). The numbers of slaves, most of them young women, are estimated to range into the hundreds of thousands in Western Europe and the United States, fueled in part by the Russian and Eastern European Mob. The numbers are higher in the 3rd world.Italian police have smashed an Italian-Bulgarian human trafficking ring believed to have sold newborn children to childless couples.
The gang allegedly smuggled dozens of Bulgarian citizens into Italy.
Men were reportedly forced to work in black market jobs in slave-like conditions, while women were forcibly driven into prostitution.
Fifty-seven people have been arrested. Bulgarian police are helping to search for other suspected accomplices.
The inquiry started after police found that Bulgarian migrants were being smuggled into Italy on board trucks on a weekly basis.
During the year-long investigation, it emerged that a Bulgarian woman had been sold to an Italian man to be his sex slave, police said.
A 45-year-old Italian woman allegedly bought a newborn baby from a Bulgarian couple for 10,000 euros (£6,600). All three are among those detained.
Some male immigrants were forced to work as shepherds in southern Italy and were virtually treated like slaves, police said.
Investigators are also looking into alleged human organ trafficking by the same gang, which they believe might have been active in other European countries as well.
Those arrested face charges of selling and buying infants, kidnapping, slavery, aiding and abetting illegal immigration and sex abuse.