At least 50 Colombian women recruited in their country by a criminal network that brought them to Spain for sexual exploitation and even used hit men to threaten them, but a joint operation between the Civil Guard and Police of that South American country succeeded in disbanding the organization.
And it marked a “turning point” in Spain’s judicial history, thanks to the first Joint Investigation Team (ECI) created at the judicial level between a European country and Colombia. Civil Guard in Galicia, Miguel González Arias.
Something also highlighted by Alfonso López Malo, the colonel in charge of this institution’s Central Operating Unit (UCO); Beatriz Sánchez, prosecutor of the Department of Foreigners and Trafficking in Persons, and Colonel Carlos Alfredo Currea, attaché of the Colombian Police in Spain.
about this operation Estorqueresulted in. arrest of seven members of a network that did not hesitate to blackmail and pressure victims’ families and that he may have abused more than 50 women in the last four years for benefits of between 25,000 and 35,000 euros each.
Coordinatedly, the team was able to transport several victims and their relatives to a safe location outside the organization’s operations in Colombia, the destination of sexual exploitation benefits, whose financial and money laundering system has also been dismantled. women. victims.
Bold denunciation of a victim
This The operation began at the end of 2021, thanks to a “bold” complaint by a victimnow a protected witness, describing how he was caught by this organization in Colombia by being duped and taking advantage of his economic and family situation.
This woman, according to investigators, did not want to pay the network more money for the debt the victims allegedly contracted to the organization and because she did not want this to happen to more women. On a trip he took to send the money, he called him “good person” and explained his situation. Victims between the ages of 18 and 25 were “hooked” on the phone 24 hours a day and were almost always locked in a locked room.
The organization owed each captured woman €12,000 for transport to Spain and other costs—to the complainant—but many came to pay up to ten times more through relatives blackmailed by the network. According to investigators’ investigations, the victims were caught with false promises of jobs such as waitresses and brought to different provinces of Spain to engage in prostitution in private apartments.
Inside Action launched in Spain, provinces of A Coruña, Toledo and Cáceres, where three potential victims of trafficking were released. Also, they have been four people were arrested, two in Santiago de Compostela, one in Cáceres and the other in Gijón, those accused of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering and membership of a criminal organization.
Three people have been arrested in Colombia, particularly in Medellín. Among them is the leader and maximum representative of this criminal organization, responsible for controlling all stages of the recruitment, transport and exploitation of victims.
Likewise, an international arrest warrant was issued for another Ecuador-based female member of the organization, accused of recruiting some victims.
Clan ‘Los Pachelly’ usurping families
It was members of the ‘Los Pachelly’ clan who directly threatened or even inflicted violence on their relatives to end their reluctance to pay if the victims did not pay. The Pachellys have strong ties to other historical criminal clans such as the Gulf clan.
While the proceedings were being conducted in both countries, the joint team, in coordination between Colombian and Spanish authorities and an NGO, was able to safely transport the complainant’s son to Spain. In fact, they did not want to reveal the outcome of this operation until the child and other relatives were safe.
Colombia is among the countries with the highest number of victims.
Both the Civil Guard and the Prosecutor’s Office valued the outcome of the joint team that was able to open this investigation model to further operations. But above all, they stressed the protection of victims as a primary goal. The courtroom prosecutor reminded that Colombia tops the list of countries where women who have been sexually abused in Spain have been recruited since the epidemic, followed by Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Romania and Nigeria.