Posted on 07/17/2002 12:16:26 PM PDT by DTA
I'm sure she is. She's "willing" not to have a leg broken or her face slashed! As willing as willing can be!
19 LINKED TO EURASIAN CRIME RING NAMED IN FEDERAL COMPLAINT FOR ALIEN SMUGGLINGAccording to the affidavit, the smuggling operation was operated by Serge Mezheritsky and Tetyana Komisaruk. Aliens would typically be recruited in Kiev, Ukraine, provided with valid Mexican tourist visas, flown to Mexico and eventually transported across the U.S. border by either foot, car, or boat. The smuggled aliens would then be brought to an interim location in Los Angeles from where many would be transported by domestic airline to their ultimate destinations in the United States. The Ukrainian nationals would typically be charged $7,000 for the smuggling fee, travel documents to Mexico, hotel accommodation, and other expenses. Those arrested today were . . .
Jury finds six of seven Ukrainians guilty of immigrant smugglingJune 26, 2002
By SANDRA MARQUEZ
Associated Press WriterLOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal jury found six of seven Ukranians guilty Wednesday of smuggling immigrant women to the United States for prostitution.
Federal prosecutors contended the smuggling ring lured hundreds of Ukrainians - many of them young women - to Los Angeles for a "full service" operation that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profits.
The victims were transported in boats, in the trunks of cars, and even on foot, with stops in Mexico City and Baja California on the way to Los Angeles.
After nearly three days of deliberations, the jury convicted six defendants of smuggling and conspiracy to import women for purposes of prostitution.
The smuggling charges carry mandatory prison terms of five years. Sentencing was set for the fall.
The jury was unable to reach verdicts against Nataliya Korolova. U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi ordered the panel to continue deliberations in her case. Convicted were Tetyana Komisaruk, 50, who is Korolova's mother; Komisaruk's husband, Veleriy Komisaruk, 40; her daughter Lorina Latysheva, 25; Latysheva's husband, Oleksandr Latyshev, 29; Serge Mezheritsky, 36; and Grigoriy Chernov, 50. . .
Serge Mezheritsky, who once ran unsuccessfully for the City Council of West Hollywood, is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. His grandmother was married to a Lieutenant Major in the Soviet Army . From www.kpnews.com:
An FBI affidavit said Mezheritsky had plans for a prostitution ring that would bring him income of dlrs 10,000 a day, with more money coming from the blackmail of clients secretly videotaped during sexual encounters.FBI documents show Tetyana "Tanya" Komisaruk called the women "the fools", the "broads" and the "whores". In one FBI wiretap, she warned an accomplice that the "merchandise" could easily run away, and suggested that he "maybe . . . tie them up with chains."After one of his Ukrainian madams was found murdered in her San Fernando Valley apartment, the affidavit said Mezheritsky was overheard on an FBI wiretap telling an associate it "just totally killed my business."
"Russia's Illicit Exports
MOSCOW, July 10, 2001
"(CBS) Some of modern Russia's most valuable, if illicit, exports are women.
The CIA estimates that thousands of Russian women a year are lured to the U.S. with offers of good jobs as models, housekeepers or waitresses. Once there though, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, they are trapped as sex slaves.
"The women who are victims of trafficking are absolutely right to be in fear of their lives," said Gillian Caldwell, the executive director of the Witness and Global Survival Network. She has spent two years investigating the trafficking of women.
"They're often offered dramatic sums of money compared to what they're able to earn at home and they have visions of a better life," said Caldwell. But instead, there's the sleazy reality they face. Using hidden cameras, representatives of Witness and Global Survival Network posed as traffickers — in Russia, they found plenty of willing accomplices.
One pimp, for example, said that for $5,000 each, he could easily entice victims with phony classified ads. Once abroad, the pimps strip the women of their wages and their passports and force them to work as prostitutes. If they don't cooperate, the pimps threaten to hurt them or members of their families.
Olga was only 17 when she signed a contract to work, she thought, as a waitress. "They locked us up and we were powerless because the local police were in on the game," recalled Olga.
These women may be naïve, but they are also victims of ruthless criminal organizations who use them to rake in millions of dollars. Most them of them are too terrified to ask for help or run away. So a coalition of Russian women's groups is trying to get the word out to beware of cushy foreign job offers. But the real challenge is to jail the pimps and that's what a new U.S. law is designed to do.
It increases the maximum sentence for some trafficking offences to life, allows victims to remain in the U.S. to testify against traffickers and provides for sanctions against countries which don't move to control the problem.
But tough as the new law is, Russia's economic reality is even tougher. The fact is, as long as Russian criminals have poor young women to prey on, the stream of trafficked victims from here is not likely to dry up.
©MMI, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/10/eveningnews/main300747.shtml
Isn't that typical of CBS liberals? You are poor so you have no choice but to become a sex slave. Grrrrrr. CBS doesn't want anyone to go after the animals who do this apparently.
I do think it's important to distinguish between shady dealings between worldwide mafia rings and "wink & nod" politicians from the far east and middle eastern countries, and careful not to label entire governments corrupt because of a few bad dudes.
Proportionally, that would be 120,000 American young women sold into sex slavery in a $40 billion a year business.
This isn't new either. The UK, the UN, Amnesty International and the USA have tried to stop it for years. Impossible that politicians,police and judges are not involved.
Is that another PC euphemism for Muslims?
Tropoljac should know. Same thing occurs with the "Russian" or "Ukrainian" mob. Need a translator with these articles.
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