With the Supreme Court’s ruling, three members of a sex trafficking ring involving Bulgarian and Albanian perpetrators who exploited underage Bulgarian and Romanian girls remain in prison. The ring was uncovered when a minor, locked in an apartment in Thessaloniki, managed to escape and report them after being told she would be sent to Germany to continue her exploitation there.

According to her testimony, in Bulgaria she had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old: “I became pregnant and had a daughter with him, but he did not recognize the child.” She left her home and moved in with her partner, who lived with his own family. When the child was six months old, they separated, and she returned to her mother’s home. At some point, she met a fellow countryman, married and twelve years older than her: “At first we were friends, and then, after my breakup, we started a sexual relationship.”

They then went together to Italy to find work, leaving her child in Bulgaria. In Italy, he “made fake documents for foreigners,” while she could not find a job. He then told her that he “could arrange for her to find a good job in Greece where he had contacts” and that “he would make a lot of money from her.”

According to the minor, “because I had to work and because I was in love with … who had told me he would divorce and marry me, I believed him and decided to travel with him from Italy to Greece.”

On the ship to Greece, the minor asked him, “What work will I do in Greece?” He replied that she would work as a prostitute for various clients he would find. “I immediately reacted, but he hit me and began insulting and threatening me, saying it would happen exactly as he said. I was scared, but at the same time I was in love with him, so I stopped resisting,” the minor testified.

Arrival in Greece
Upon arriving in Greece, he told her he would return to Italy and left her at a relative’s home. A few days later, two unknown individuals took her to an apartment on a central street in Thessaloniki, where “another girl lived, probably Albanian, about 30 years old. I don’t remember her name. The two men left me there and left.”

She was informed by phone by the man she had a relationship with that she would now start working as a prostitute and had to do exactly what the Albanian woman and her friend told her. Late at night, various clients would come to the Albanian woman’s home, drink, and then she would leave the minor with them to have sex. Afterwards, they arranged for the next client. Every day she had sex with about two clients. She did not see whether the woman received any money, but she believed that each client paid to have sex with her because she heard the word “money.”

“He had me imprisoned”
She was then moved to the apartment of “A,” again in Thessaloniki, where “another girl from Romania lived and worked as a prostitute. Every time ‘A’ left the house, he locked me inside; he had me imprisoned.” “In this apartment,” the minor added, “I had sex with about three clients each day after appointments.” During her time in Thessaloniki, “no one gave me money for the work I did, even though they made a lot of money—and I don’t know how much, because I don’t know how much each client paid.”

It was not enough for what they had forced her to do. They told her that she would be sent by bus to Germany to a Bulgarian friend who lived there to work again as a prostitute. Out of fear of this new threat, one night she broke a shutter and managed to get outside. She went to the White Tower Police Station seeking protection and reporting what she had experienced.

The Thessaloniki Mixed Jury Court unanimously found three members of the ring guilty of forming a criminal organization and trafficking people against a minor for the purpose of sexual exploitation, committed professionally and repeatedly, and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 5 to 15 years. They appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking to annul the appellate court’s decision for lack of legal reasoning and because they were not granted any mitigating circumstances. However, the 6th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court rejected the appeals, ruling them unfounded.

PHOTO: EUROKINISSI