The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have dismantled a criminal network exploiting women for sex in clandestine brothels in Barcelona and Paris. The victims were forced into prostitution at any time of day and were also required to sell or use drugs with clients if they so desired. After nearly a year and a half of investigation, the police have arrested the woman who ran the brothels, and eight other people are under investigation in connection with the case. The arrested woman allegedly led the network along with her partner and her mother. Other women were also involved, managing the brothels, where the victims were monitored by closed-circuit video surveillance. The investigation began in September 2024 following the testimony of a woman who told officers from the human trafficking unit that she had worked for months as a receptionist in various clandestine brothels in Barcelona where women were being sexually exploited. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) explained in a statement this Sunday that this witness recounted how the women were forced into prostitution, "with complete availability and subjected to cyber-control," with a video surveillance system in the apartments. The case has been taken over by agents from the human trafficking unit under the direction of the Prosecutor's Office for Immigration and Human Trafficking. The initial stages of the investigation already indicated that the network was run by the arrested woman, her partner, and her mother, while other women were responsible for monitoring the apartments. The initial inquiries also led agents to suspect that the network itself might control brothels in other European capitals. Key testimonies

In early 2025, the police identified one of the exploited women, who explained that she had traveled to Spain to work as a prostitute on her own. She did so for a few months, until a woman promised her better pay and greater security if she worked as a prostitute in a Barcelona apartment run by an acquaintance. The promise was a deception, and the woman who met her in Barcelona saddled her with an exorbitant debt for the trip there. From then on, she forced her to prostitute herself and sell drugs to her clients. Following this testimony, investigators found a second victim who had been in the same situation before managing to escape. Over time, the group's leader closed the apartments she used as clandestine brothels in Barcelona and shifted the women to working in hotels or at clients' homes. The investigation has also confirmed that the woman opened a brothel in an apartment in Paris's 15th arrondissement and transferred at least four of the victims she had already exploited in Barcelona. To attract clients, the arrested woman posted advertisements on various internet portals and at one point had around seventy active listings. She advertised on websites offering sex work not only in Spain and France, but also in Switzerland—where she resided for a month—Italy, Luxembourg, and Germany. Police have carried out three raids in Barcelona and seized fifteen cell phones belonging to the women who ran the brothels, as well as other items that are currently being analyzed.

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It was 1:00 p.m. when the phone rang at the Sant Adrià de Besòs National Police station. On the other end of the call was a very upset woman. She said she was locked in an apartment in Badalona with a friend. Nervous, she described how a man, armed with a gun, was watching them and, at that moment, was sexually assaulting her friend. The woman hung up, and officers from the National Police and the Badalona Urban Guard immediately went to the apartment. It was August 14th, and this call marked the beginning of a police investigation that has led to the release of 18 women and the arrest of four people who were forcing them into prostitution.

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Agents from the Civil Guard, the National Police, and Customs Surveillance have dismantled a criminal organization that sexually exploited women in vulnerable situations throughout Spain. In a joint operation, police forces freed 162 victims in different parts of Spain and made around thirty arrests. Although the group was based in the Valencian Community, it had begun to expand to other territories, including Catalonia.

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For the first time, it seems we're getting some good news from the Minister of Feminism: that the Catalan government is working to abolish prostitution. These are intentions, of course, and we'll see what happens, but it's already much more than what we've had in Catalonia in recent years: regulationist policies that want to present the so-called oldest profession in the world as just another career opportunity, a job like any other. Ada Colau made things easier for pimps by adopting this position and selling it as open and inclusive. It may seem to ordinary people that this issue doesn't concern them, that those of us who don't know this world have nothing to say, but the existence of sexual exploitation networks and the impunity with which they operate represent one of the greatest shames we live with while we pay lip service to equality and human rights. Can we boast of social sensitivity while there are people being bought and sold, rented by the hour, and subjected to degrading and humiliating practices? The PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) has long since committed to advancing abolitionism, as feminist organizations have demanded, but things are moving slowly because, as Ana Redondo said, touching on the topic of prostitution always generates controversy. The politicians who put the brakes on these much-needed advances in equality will explain why they show such solidarity with pimps. It's clear that the corruption cases that have been uncovered recently, where there is no shortage of "ladies" demonstrate that resistance to ending this ignominy must come from within the party itself. In any case, Councilor Eva Menor's initiative is welcome, and we hope that those resisting it will consider the conditions in which prostitutes live, not their ideological principles, and that they will not use this issue to establish a partisan profile. There are many manipulated ideas on the subject, and that abolitionism is not a persecution of women who practice prostitution, nor does it have the intention of stigmatizing them and plunging them further into misery. This is the intimate sphere of atavistic male domination exercised through economic power. The fact that cleaning toilets is just as degrading as accepting multiple penetrations in exchange for money. With prostitution, it does not punish the exploited and should provide support and assistance measures for them and their reparation. If there is a single woman who can be sold as an object, we cannot say that we are an egalitarian society.

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The police arrested a 38-year-old man this Thursday, accused of crimes of sexual assault and threats. The detainee, who has already entered prison by order of the judge, is one of the most wanted pimps in Spain. Three courts from around the state had requested his arrest for similar crimes. He looked for girls who offered to do housework or other jobs through internet advertising portals and who were in a precarious economic situation. From there, he recruited them for prostitution and sexually exploited them.

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