Europol steps up investigation into Chinese human trafficking network

Europol has brought together 15 experts from 8 countries, including Belgium, to support the investigation into the largest Chinese prostitution network ever rolled up in the European Union. The cooperation was part of the operational Taskforce Lotus, the European police organization said on Thursday.

In February, Belgian, Spanish and Swiss authorities arrested 31 suspects for their suspected involvement in the sexual exploitation of Chinese victims. The suspects took the women to Europe, and then asked for high refunds for them. It is believed that the victims were forced to finance them through prostitution. The network advertised the victims on websites and operated call centers to connect the women with clients in various European countries.

In total, the authorities have identified more than 200 victims. Over the past 3 years, the researchers have checked about 3,000 ads related to the network, which suggests that the actual number of victims is much higher. The online aspect played an important role in the operation of the gang. The Lotus task force was able to dismantle a significant part of the network, but the investigation has not yet ended.

At the beginning of March, 15 experts from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Switzerland together extracted tens of terabytes of data from hundreds of seized devices. Due to the intensive cooperation, this could happen in a few days instead of months. The data that the experts were able to collect will serve for operational analysis and further research into the activities of the trafficking network.

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