Nine members of a women’s trafficking network are detained in Colombia

The Colombian Police arrested nine alleged members of a human trafficking network who cheated on and sexually exploited Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Peruvian women in Colombia.

In an operation coordinated with the Prosecutor’s Office in two Colombian cities, Bogotá and Ipiales (on the border with Ecuador), it was “achieved the dismantling of a criminal organization dedicated to the trafficking of persons in the form of sexual exploitation of others, with the capture of nine of its members, “said the Police in a statement.

Among the detainees is a woman, called “Amparo” by the Police, who apparently was the head of this trafficking network that had tentacles in other cities, such as Calarcá, in the department of Quindío and whose center was in Ipiales, in Nariño, due to its proximity to the border.

“The modus operandi one of these criminals was the recruitment of women with economic vulnerability, under the promise of a job that would allow them and their families to have a better life ”, explained the Police.

These victims were also captured in municipalities of the tourist Eje Cafetero or in Valle del Cauca and Antioquia, as well as in other countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, and were transferred to Ipiales “with the purpose of exploiting and commercializing them sexually in two conditioned establishments. like nightclubs ”.

Once they got there they were told that they had “an exorbitant debt” that they had to pay off through “aberrant sexual services”, and if they refused to pay them, they threatened to harm their families “or with supposed curses of black magic and Santeria”.

The women, according to the police account, were also subjected to physical and psychological torture that has left them “permanent consequences.”

At the time of the operation, they also rescued four victims: two Colombians, one Peruvian and one Venezuelan.

The Ombudsman’s Office warned at the end of July about the increase in human trafficking and smuggling, since in the first half of the year they gave legal assistance to 99 people, eleven more than in the same period of 2020.

The Police identified, until October 14, 123 victims of trafficking, the majority women and 34 minors, and arrested 33 people for this crime.

According to figures from the Colombian Ministry of the Interior, and despite being a very underrepresented phenomenon, between 2013 and 2020, 686 cases of human trafficking were registered, of which 82% corresponded to the female gender, being the modality of sexual exploitation that of highest prevalence with 408 cases, followed by forced labor with 134. (I)