Police on Crete have arrested three people over a sex trafficking ring that brought young women from Romania to the island, held them captive and forced them into prostitution.

Officers from the Heraklion Sub-Directorate for the Prosecution and Investigation of Crime, part of the Hellenic Police in Crete’s largest city, are searching for a fourth suspect. He is a 31-year-old Romanian man who is alleged to have led the group and has so far evaded arrest.

According to investigators, the ring systematically brought women from Romania to Crete, where they were allegedly made to meet men for paid sex in hotels and private homes in Heraklion. The money went to the suspects. Police say the group also confiscated the women’s travel documents, which made it far harder for them to get away.

The wanted man is alleged to have been in a relationship with one of the victims. From early 2025 until August 2026, he is accused of keeping her under his control and forcing her into sex with strangers, collecting the payments himself. Detectives are now trying to establish whether she was his only victim or whether he exploited others.

An elderly couple are among those in custody. They are alleged to have guarded the women, who were kept in a flat and could not leave freely. Their passports and other papers were reportedly hidden in a separate location controlled by the wanted man. Police are examining whether the same method was used on other women.

The third suspect, a Romanian taxi driver, is accused of driving the women to the hotels and houses where the meetings were arranged. Investigators are studying his journeys, which they believe could reveal the scale of the operation and point to further victims.

Detectives are also looking into similar offences over the past four months, as there are serious indications that more women may have been exploited by the group. They are considering whether the ring operated beyond Heraklion, with women taken to other parts of Crete. Police are trying to map the whole network, and possible links to Romania are under scrutiny.

The three suspects in custody and the man still being sought face a range of charges, depending on the individual. These include human trafficking, pimping, rape, bodily harm and threats in a domestic context, and embezzlement.

The preliminary investigation is continuing. The central question for police is how many more women passed through the ring and how widely it operated across the island.