Police break up prostitution gang in Palma

OFFICERS of the National Police force belonging to the Foreign Affairs and Documentation Brigade have arrested three people in Palma who forced young Bulgarians into prostitution after bringing them to the island under false pretences. The police last week finished an investigation which they started at the request of the Bulgarian authorities, who informed them of their suspicions that young Bulgarian women had been taken to Palma for prostitution purposes. These suspicions were based on anxious and repeated complaints made by the families of the victims to the Bulgarian authorities, saying that they were worried that they had not heard from their daughters for weeks or months. The first enquiries made by the police led them to discover a club where these young people were forced to practice prostitution by the gang, unknown to the management of the club, and a flat in Arenal where, it is thought, the girls were kept. The police raided the flat at an opportune moment, catching the gang off-guard. They arrested one man and one woman, both Bulgarian nationals. The other woman was arrested later. She is also Bulgarian. The police suspect that this gang, before coming to Palma, had taken girls to countries in the north of Europe for prostitution.