As a result of international cooperation, the Szabolcs-Szatmár Bereg county chief prosecution office has pressed charges and is prosecuting a couple who were captured in Hungary, and a person who had been assisting them with the transportation of women victims. Young Hungarian victims engaged in prostitution had been continuously exploited for several years.

The couple’s female member initially also worked as a prostitute and then found profitable business opportunity in exploiting women engaged in prostitution, and agreed with her partner in 2013 that she recruits women in her social network to work abroad. Her partner was agreed to transport the vulnerable women to different Western European countries – Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Belgium – and make them there to work as prostitutes. The accused persons took their share from the money that the prostitutes earned with prostitution. For years long, they exploited the victims this way, as they had been living on earnings of their prostitution.

In October 2016, in co-operation with a Swiss citizen, a criminal organization based on the exploitation of women was set up, where tasks and their share from the money the victims earned were discussed in advance. The task of the couple brought to court in Hungary was to continue recruiting women engaged in sex work with the promise of high earning opportunities in abroad, then to transport the victims – partly with the assistance of the third person who worked in the passenger transport industry – to Switzerland. The women were housed in a brothel in the Swiss man's apartment, and they were transported by the male members of the criminal organization to the clients, while one of the Hungarian women living in Switzerland also involved, trained the girls and communicated to them the kinds of services they were expecting them to provide to clients. 

Women had to pay 50% of their earnings to the members of the criminal organization, and they also had to pay for their accommodation, sex advertisements, and delivery to the clients, so they could keep only a little fraction of their earnings own their own.

As a result of a Swiss-Hungarian cooperation assisted by EUROJUST, three members of the criminal organization are being brought to court in Hungary and another three in Switzerland.

The prosecutor's office proposed the imposition of the most serious sentence on the defendants – penitentiary – for committing crimes of trafficking in human beings in criminal association with accomplices, and on a commercial scale, and living on earnings of prostitution. The Office also proposes a court order for the confiscation of assets for the millions of Hungarian forints (HUF) taken from exploited women.

More information on the recent police action and capture video is available on the police website at the following link: http://www.police.hu/hu/hirek-es-informaciok/legfrissebb-hireink/bunugyek/svajcban-futtattak-lanyokat

Source in Hungarian: http://ugyeszseg.hu/vademeles-a-lanyokat-futtato-svajci-magyar-bunszervezet-magyarorszagon-elfogott-tagjai-ellen-videoval/