Posted on 11/04/2002 3:30:18 PM PST by knighthawk
An Italian-led, joint European police operation, 'Sunflower', led to the arrests of 80 people in early October 2002, in what was claimed to be the continent's most important operation ever against human trafficking.
Members of gangs trafficking east European women were arrested in Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Targets of the operation included travel agents, coach companies and 'hotel' owners. The operation followed a similar one in April 2001, in which 100 people were arrested; police pointed to close co-operation between Russian and Italian groups in both cases.
However, the operation has only made a small dent in a huge criminal business whose roots are bound up with the chronic economic, social and political problems of the transitional states of central and eastern Europe. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 500,000 women are illegally trafficked in the world each year, of whom 200,000 pass through the Balkan region. That the DEA has been estimating numbers of trafficked women points to the close relationship of the crime with heroin trafficking and other illicit businesses prevalent in the region. Research conducted on behalf of the EU Balkan Stability Pact in 2002 concluded that trafficking in women is the single largest criminal business in the Balkans in terms of cash turnover, exceeding even heroin trafficking.
The Balkan traffic in women involves recruitment of women from the more impoverished and chaotic countries of Eastern Europe, trafficking through central Europe, to hub points in the Balkans. From these hub points women either find themselves forced to work as prostitutes in the Balkans, or are trafficked onward to Western Europe or the Middle East, and in some cases Asia and North America.
In the journey from eastern source countries to the Balkans and beyond, Belgrade is the principal trading hub, and it appears that most women trafficked through the Balkans spend some time in Yugoslavia.
Budapest and Bucharest function as waypoints for women en route to Belgrade.
The principal destinations within the Balkans are Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania.
The dominant group involved in trafficking women, according to intelligence sources, is ethnic Albanian, and may account for as much as 65% of Balkan human trafficking. Albanians are involved in a number of routes from start to finish, a trend increasingly mirrored in Albanian heroin trafficking. There are Albanian criminals working in Chisinau, trafficking women through Europe, and then sending women onward to Albanian-controlled brothels in Albania, Kosovo, the UK and other European countries where Albanian organised crime is active. In London's Soho district and other parts of the West End, Albanians have achieved almost total control of off-street prostitution in the last five years.
Other prominent groups include Ukrainian, Russian and Turkish gangs. In addition, Italian organised crime groups are involved in onward trafficking into Western Europe. According to one experienced Balkan police officer: "The Albanians, Russians and Turks are operating in the light, and the Italians are operating in the shadow, but their role should not be underestimated."
No wonder our previously impeached rapist-in-chief beheld so much love for the Albanians. Rape, prostitution, drugs, slavery -- they are his kind of people! Note also that the Albanians are Muslim. The Religeon-of-Peace is really causing a lot of trouble world-wide right now!
Does who have a web site?
Elsewhere we learned that "ethnic Albanian" is just another way of saying "Muslim," and many of those aren't even Albanians, but terrorists from the "bear," Iran.
Do you want to order one?
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