Spanish police arrested 22 suspected pimps who allegedly used violence to force women into prostitution and tattooed them with barcodes as a sign of ownership, officials said on Saturday.
Police are calling the gang the “barcode pimps.”
Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a barcode, and an amount of money — 2,000 euros (US$2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her.
The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator, and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to a Spanish Ministry of the Interior statement.
All those arrested were of Romanian nationality and they had forced the women to hand over part of their earnings, the statement said.
The women were tattooed on their wrists if they tried to escape, the statement said. Police also seized guns and ammunition. It was not immediately clear when the raids took place.
Police seized 140,000 euros in cash, which had been hidden in a false ceiling, a large amount of gold jewelry and five vehicles, three of which were described as luxury cars.
The gang was made up of two separate groups, referred to as “clans” in the statement, each dedicated to controlling prostitution along fixed stretches of a street in downtown Madrid.
One of the alleged ringleaders, who was identified only by the initials I.T., is wanted by authorities in Romania for crimes linked to prostitution, the statement said.
The women were controlled at all times to ensure “money was taken off them immediately,” the statement said.
Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels — staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe — lining highways throughout the country.
Prostitution falls in legal limbo — it is not regulated, although pimping is a crime. The northeastern city of Barcelona plans to introduce regional legislation in coming weeks banning prostitution on urban streets.
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