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French police dismantle ‘sex tour’ prostitution ring in upmarket Paris districts

French police have dismantled an international prostitution ring which was operating a "sex tour" business in some of the most upmarket areas of Paris.

French police dismantle 'sex tour' prostitution ring in upmarket Paris districts
An apartment building in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Photo: AFP
The international operation specializing in so-called “sex tours” saw prostitutes from Eastern Europe travel between capital cities to meet their clients.
 
The prostitutes from Ukraine and Russia would arrange appointments with clients in apartments located in the upmarket 8th and 16th arrondissements of the French capital. 
 
The pimps operating the ring owned a total of seven apartments where the BRP – the arm of the French police force dedicated to tackling crimes of pimping – discovered €20,000 euros in cash and several luxury watches.
 
Clients were charged between €50 and €200 depending on the quality of the apartment, earning around €1000 euros per day. 
 
Meanwhile the women took away €250 per hour, meeting with three to eight customers a day. 

 
The five accused of pimping the women were sent to a Paris court on Thursday to be indicted by an investigating judge.
 
These included a 30-year-old Egyptian, another was a 38-year-old Palestinian, while the other three came from the Philippines, Serbia and Cuba, according to Le Parisien
 
While selling sex is legal, soliciting sex or running a brothel has been illegal in France for decades, and paying for it was criminalized in spring 2016.
 
The ring assumed the cover of a medical tourism company to get away with its crime. 
 
The “sex tour” phenomenon, so-called because the women are constantly moved around, appeared in France in 2011 and has since grown in scale, according to reports in the French press.
 
French police estimate that there are around 20,000 involved in “sex tours” – twice as many as the figure they have for street prostitutes.
 
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Paris police dismantle Airbnb prostitution ring File photo of a Paris apartment: robertcrum/Depositphotos

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POLICE

France to increase security at churches over Easter

French authorities are to deploy members of the security forces in front of all Catholic and Protestant churches for the upcoming Easter weekend, further bolstering security in the aftermath of the Moscow attack.

France to increase security at churches over Easter

France has raised its security alert to the highest level after the Moscow concert hall attack that has claimed at least 143 lives.

Friday’s massacre, claimed by Islamic State jihadists, was the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.

In a memo sent to préfectures on Thursday and seen by AFP, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that the “very high” level of the terrorist threat and persisting international tensions including the Gaza war and the Moscow attack mean that “extreme vigilance must be maintained” during the Easter celebrations.

Darmanin asked préfets to deploy law enforcement forces in front of “all” Catholic and Protestant churches, in particular during services on Friday and this weekend.

The interior minister said “particular attention” should be paid to vehicles parked near places of assembly or worship.

Two planned attacks have been foiled in France since the start of the year.

One involved a plan to stage “violent action against a Catholic religious building” by a man “clearly committed to jihadist ideology”, according to the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office.

The 62-year-old man was arrested and remanded in custody in early March, prosecutors said.

Catholics and Protestants commemorate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, while Orthodox Christians will conduct commemorations on May 5th.

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