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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.

Published: 6 July 2018 11:12 CEST
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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POLITICS

France to set up national prosecutor’s office for combatting organised crime

The French Minister of Justice wants to create a national prosecutor's office dedicated to fighting organised crime and plans to offer reduced sentences for "repentant" drug traffickers.

Published: 28 April 2024 13:02 CEST
France to set up national prosecutor's office for combatting organised crime

Speaking to French Sunday newspaper Tribune Dimanche, Eric Dupond-Moretti said he also intends to offer “repentant” drug traffickers a change of identify.

This new public prosecutor’s office – PNACO – “will strengthen our judicial arsenal to better fight against crime at the high end of the spectrum,” Dupond-Moretti explained.

Former head of the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office Jean-François Ricard, appointed a few days ago as special advisor to the minister, will be responsible for consultations to shape the reform, the details of which will be presented in October, Dupond-Moretti said.

Inspired by the pentiti (repent) law in force in Italy, which is used to fight mafia crime, Dupond-Moretti also announced that he would create a “genuine statute” that rewards repentance.

“Legislation [in France] already exists in this area, but it is far too restrictive and therefore not very effective,” Dupond-Moretti explained.

In future, a judge will be able to grant special status to a repentant criminal who has “collaborated with justice” and “made sincere, complete and decisive statements to dismantle criminal networks”.

The sentence incurred by the person concerned would be reduced and, for their protection, they would be offered, “an official and definitive change of civil status”, a “totally new” measure, the minister said.

The Minister of Justice is also proposing that, in future, special assize courts, composed solely of professional magistrates, be entrusted not only with organised drug trafficking, as is already the case today, but also with settling scores between traffickers.

This will avoid pressure and threats on the citizen jurors who have to judge these killings, he said.

Finally, the minister plans to create a crime of “organised criminal association” in the French penal code. This will be punishable by 20 years of imprisonment.

Currently, those who import “cocaine from Colombia” risk half that sentence for “criminal association”, he said.

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