The investigation, launched in 2019, focused on the alleged leader – a 36-year-old man
Four Bulgarians in France have been charged with pimping and human trafficking after being arrested in mid-April in an unauthorized camp near Bordeaux, southwestern France, where they ran a prostitution network. This was reported by AFP, citing the prosecutor’s office and a source close to the investigation.
According to the source, these people persuaded young women in Bulgaria to come to France. The girls were later forced into prostitution on Bordeaux boulevards or truck parking lots. If they resisted, they were threatened and raped, and kept “in a state of material dependence,” he told AFP.
The investigation, launched in 2019, focused on the alleged leader of the network – a 36-year-old man arrested along with his wife and two other men – his “deputies”. According to the same source, the man continued to lead the network while he was in prison in Bulgaria in 2020, giving orders to his wife.
Since 2019, the accused have crossed the border many times, staying in France, Bulgaria, Germany or Italy, where the leader of the network was already known in connection with such cases. Cash and an “expensive German car” were seized during the arrest of the four.
Seventeen people from a Bulgarian pimp network were sentenced to up to 8 years in France, local media reported in mid-July 2021.
The pimps recruited young women to Bulgaria and accommodated them in Germany, from where they were taken daily to the French border town of Strasbourg to work as prostitutes.
The network also operated in the area of the resort town of Annecy, department of Haute-Savoie, to the south also in eastern France.
The court in Nancy handed down the sentences, and 16 of the 17 Bulgarians were finally banned from entering France.
