As reported by Yuri Koev, a representative of the Department of Military Counterintelligence, their service received information about the location in one of the countries of West Africa (where a Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent is currently operating) of a group of Ukrainian women who had been illegally taken out, held by members of a criminal group and forced to provide intimate services. According to him, Interfax-Ukraine reports, the girls were freed as a result of a set of measures carried out by SBU officers.
“We made contacts with representatives of local authorities, and the law enforcement agencies of this country were informed about our actions. Despite all the complexity and even harshness of the actions, international law was not violated on our part,” Yuri Koev noted. “In our actions, we took into account that we were not at home.”
The organizers of the criminal group that had been trafficking women to this country were detained on the territory of Ukraine. Among them are both Ukrainians and African citizens. The SBU has opened a criminal case against them under Part 2 of Article 149 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Human trafficking or other illegal agreement on the transfer of a person”). Operational and investigative actions are being carried out against the organizers who were detained, as well as those involved in this activity.
Yuri Koev said that the Ukrainian women have already been sent home. “No infectious diseases were found in them, neither AIDS nor malaria. There are no drug addicts among them either, despite the fact that some women held in the brothel were provided with drugs,” Yuri Koev noted.
According to him, the girls intended to work in the hotel and restaurant business in Africa. At first they were transported to Cyprus, where they had already begun working as prostitutes in a brothel, then their documents were taken away and they were taken by car as tourists to an African country. “They were held in two brothels, not allowed outside, fed once a day. The cost of our girls’ services was estimated very highly — from $250 to $300 per day. And that is eight times more expensive than the price of the services of mulatto women. However, the girls earned nothing, on the contrary — they remained at a big loss, as clients were often dissatisfied with them and did not pay in full.”
The counterintelligence representative noted that the girls were freed in time, as after some time the “owners” were going to sell them to the provinces, and then liberation would have been impossible.
Mikhail Kiashko, a representative of the Main Directorate “K” of the SBU present at the briefing, said that there is no reliable information about the number of all Ukrainian women who are in sexual slavery in this African country (its name is not disclosed in the interests of the investigation, since the operation carried out is only the beginning, and another one is planned soon). He also clarified that none of the four girls had been engaged in prostitution in Ukraine.