“I will soon submit a remand request in regard to the three men current arrested,” prosecutor Thomas Eliasson of the International Prosecution Chamber (Internationella åklagarkammaren) in Sweden told the local Göteborgsposten daily.

On Tuesday police in western Sweden brought in five men for questioning after a raid on a Gothenburg property. Three remain in custody and a preliminary investigation has been commenced.

Earlier this week a warrant for the arrest of another man was issued by the police. The 33-year-old Romanian national is however no longer on Swedish soil.

All the involved are originally from Romania and none have a permanent address in Gothenburg.

The men are under suspicion for trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and aggravated pimping.

The men were brought in after a raid on several locations in the greater Gothenburg area carried out by the county police’s special unit for serious organised crime.

The sex crimes have mainly been carried out in the Rosenlund area of the city, which is generally associated with street prostitution.

The police operation was launched as a result of lengthy surveillance investigations and according to the prosecutor there are at least ten women that have been exploited by the men.

The police declined to speculate on how the investigation would develop but on Wednesday said that they do not rule out further arrests.

So far this year, the police have reported 170 incidents of sex purchasing in Gothenburg.