Agents of the National Police have arrested 37 people who formed a criminal group allegedly dedicated to the sexual exploitation of minors. In addition to prostituting them, they also used them for the sale of narcotic substances. In the searches that were carried out, the agents located a den where those arrested sexually exploited the minors and various effects such as drugs, computer equipment, weapons and money were intervened.
They contacted the victims through social networks
The investigation began last April when the agents learned that a minor was regularly running away from her place of residence and that during her absences she had sexual relations with people of legal age in exchange for money or narcotic substances.
The investigators discovered that other minors, with whom he shared a place of residence, were in the same situation. They contacted them through social networks, gaining their trust and later used them to offer sexual services to clients to whom they supplied narcotic substances.
In some cases, they were forced to distribute the drug themselves on scooters and, after delivery, were sexually assaulted by the users themselves. On other occasions, the detainees transferred them to a well-known industrial estate in the capital where they offered buyers of the drug to have sex with them.
One of the victims was held for three days in a drug store
The police learned that one of the minors remained locked up for three days in a room of a drug store in the Madrid district of Usera run by one of the detainees. There the procedure was the same, when the clients entered to acquire their dose, this woman gave them the possibility of having sex with the minor. In a moment of carelessness, the victim managed to get away and asked for help at a nearby tobacconist from where they notified the National Police.
They also discovered that one of the most responsible for this criminal network had requested the services of one of the minors. To do this, he himself reserved a vehicle with a driver to take her from the drug store to his home and, once there, he and three other males had sex with the minor.
A hidden zulo in a hairdresser in the Puente de Vallecas district
After identifying all the people involved, three of them women, a police operation was carried out for their arrest at the end of last year in which some 150 National Police officers participated.
Among the searches carried out in homes and occupied dwellings, a hairdresser stands out, which had a hidden den without lighting and a bed where, apparently, sexual practices were carried out. They also discovered a photographic camera which they are analysing in case it could contain pornographic material of minors.
Among the intervened there are also narcotic substances, useful for their sale and consumption, a firearm, a machete, cash and various computer equipment.
The operation culminated in the release of the ten victims and with a total of 37 people arrested as allegedly responsible for the crimes of sexual assault, prostitution of minors, possession of child pornography, illegal detention and crime against public health. Once they were handed over to the judicial authority, eight of them were ordered to be put in prison.