Gang guilty of trafficking 50 women for sexual exploitation in UK

Four Hungarian men and one British woman found guilty of conspiring to traffic women into UK to work as prostitutes.

 

Five members of a prostitution racket, which flew more than 50 young women into the UK from Hungary and set them up in airport hotels, student accommodation and suburban homes, have been convicted of conspiring to traffic people into the UK for sexual exploitation.Four Hungarian nationals, Mate Puskas, Zoltan Mohacsi, Istvan Toth and Peter Toth, along with Puskas's British former girlfriend, Victoria Brown, were found guilty on Tuesday following a trial at Hove crown court. Istvan and Peter Toth were convicted in their absence.

The charges relate to more than 60 incidents over a period of almost two years. The women were brought from Hungary into the UK after their "profiles" had been uploaded on to a website advertising sexual services for sale.

Customers would call mobile phones used by the gang who then arranged for them to meet young women at a hotel or in houses run by the Hungarians as brothels.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which brought the case, is preparing what it describes as an "action plan" to improve the way the criminal justice system investigates and deals with human trafficking offences. The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, has recently held meetings with other law enforcement agencies.

The Hungarian prostitution gang operated out of an internet cafe in Croydon. "None of us can imagine how desperate the victims were in this case," said Portia Ragnauth, acting chief crown prosecutor in the south-east. "In many instances, they came to the UK to try to escape financial difficulties at home. Payments for their flights were often made by one of the five individuals convicted. Once in the UK these "debts" were used as a hold over the women who were forced to work for up to 12 hours a day.
"When the women told the group they did not want to work as prostitutes, threats would be made against them and their families back in Hungary. Threats were also made to expose the work they had been doing in the UK in their home country."

Ragneuth paid tribute to the bravery of the victims who gave evidence in the case. One woman recounted her ordeals from behind a screen in the crown court; two others who spoke via a live video-feed from Hungary.

The prosecutor added: "We know how incredibly difficult it was for them, especially as we know that the reach of this criminal group extends back to Hungary. It has not been easy for them, but we hope that today's verdict brings them justice and allows them to now move on with their lives."

The investigation was co-ordinated with police and judicial authorities in Hungary. Some of the women were said to have stayed in Sussex University student accommodation. Others were put up in houses in Eastbourne, Margate and Folkestone. Several hotels near Gatwick were also used; staff grew suspicious after they heard "muffled bangings" and found bins overflowing with toilet paper and used condoms.

All five defendants, who denied the charges, were convicted of conspiracy to traffic women into the UK for sexual exploitation contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

 Untold Post-War Allied Atrocities – A German Soldier’s Story

Posted by justice4germans

The following was sent to me by a German friend who wished to share a portion of his grandfather’s personal testimony, along with some photos and documentation, regarding his grandfather’s post-war captivity in Austria, outside of Linz:


My Grandfather was Karl Matter. His division fought on the Hungarian border before surrendering to US forces. They fought a narrow line between the Soviets and the US and surrendered to the US side after running out of ammunition on May 9th. His Division, including others of about 20,000 men were held in an open field compound outside of Linz Austria (likely at Gallneukirchen). It was a large muddy compound just like the Rhine Meadow camps. I can assure you there were a lot more than 188 such camps that are acknowledged in the documentary.

What happened in the field is a story that I was told as a young man which I’ll never forget:

They were placed in a muddy field with no tents, no food and no clothing, packed together for a week living in their own feces, surrounded by an enormous circling wall of hundreds US vehicles, and thousands of men. Once in a while for fun, a US guard would target practice on indiscriminate prisoners.  That was a common event I later learned, because many US soldiers never had the opportunity to claim “a kill” until after the war.

After a few days they began drinking their our own urine and eating leather. After one week with no food whatsoever, a US transport plane flew over the compound of these emaciated POW’s and dropped large Red Cross packages of butter, but nothing else. Just pure butter. Those that ate it died, because it greased their insides, causing diarrhea, and thereby, to lose whatever remaining fluids were still in their bodies. Grandfather refused to eat it, but they lost a lot of men that way. Then, the following day, a transport flew over again and dropped the Red Cross bread!  That meant, that these surrendered soldiers were deliberately refused food, which was available, for one whole week!

I later learned from my own research that local civilians were ordered not to feed them, or they would be executed as non combatant partisans aiding the enemy. The facts of the butter and bread story confirmed to me that it was an intentional, cruel and deadly plan.  The provisions were intentionally withheld for reasons of vengeance, or it was someone’s sick idea of a joke, and it was no different than the guards taking pot shots at them ‘just for fun’.
Afterwards, of those who survived the initial ordeal, the entire remaining Division, which had consisted mostly of Germans and some others from Baltic countries, was then handed over to the Russians, who executed all of them, and all within hearing distance of the US military which had transported them back over the border. But Grandfather survived because his ”Soldbuch” showed that he was born in Yugoslavia, which made him property of Tito, and not the Russians, so he was sent back to an American labor camp, but due to illness, was unable to continue working. 

Eventually reunited with his family and they escaped Tito’s concentration camps, via the Red Cross after a year or so. Perhaps closer to two years.


There’s also another vivid account of from my Grandfather which never made any history books, regarding the retaking of Kharkov as part of I SS Panzer Korps and the incredible war crimes that the Soviets committed on the civilian population there. It’s very sad! The story of the 3rd Waffen SS Division is not widely published and only very few survived captivity, so there were only a few autobiographical accounts. One book is “Wie ein Fels im Meer” by Karl Ulrich, the commander of one of the three regiments that made up the Division; my Grandfather’s Regiment was #3. In fact, there’s a photo of my Grandfather in that book! It well describes the final roundup of the Division like no other book, which is only available in German, but I recommend it!

Murder of former Miss Venezuela spotlights country's rampant crime

The murder of former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and a companion in a roadside robbery was only unusual for the famous name in a country that suffers one of the world's highest murder rates.

By Whitney Eulich

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This May 23, 2005 file photo released by Miss Universe shows Monica Spear, Miss Venezuela 2005, posing for a portrait ahead of the Miss Universe competition in Bangkok, Thailand. Venezuelan authorities say the soap-opera actress and former Miss Venezuela and her husband were shot and killed resisting a robbery after their car broke down.

Monica Spear, the 2004 Miss Venezuela and an international Spanish-language soap-opera star, was shot along with her companion Henry Thomas Berry on the road between Valencia and Puerto Cabello.

They were awaiting a tow truck after their car broke down, according to local news reports. Their five-year-old daughter was hurt in the suspected robbery, but is in stable condition.
Many took to social media to lament Spear’s slaying and share condolences. But take away the famous name and the deaths were all too familiar in a country where “express” kidnappings – in which victims are driven around town and forced to drain their bank accounts at gunpoint – are reported weekly and crime rates are notoriously high.