Expatica news

Rich and famous ‘spend tensof thousands on prostitutes’

10 March 2004

MADRID – A undercover Spanish journalist has lifted the lid on the murky world of prostitution and people trafficking in a new book published Wednesday.

Antonio Salas, the journalist’s pseudonym, reveals how while living undercover for a year he reached a deal to buy six Mexican minors for EUR 25,800 each – but they had to be virgins.

“El año que trafique con mujeres” (The Year I Trafficked in Women) begins with a visit by Salas to the head of ANELA, Spain’s national association of brothels.

This man is chairman of España 2000, an extreme right-wing party, and owns “bordellos where 95 percent” of the prostitutes are immigrants.

Salas tells how he became friends with a young Nigerian woman and her pimp, a former boxer from the same country.

He says he  paid EUR 14,000 for the girl, the mother of a 4-year-old boy.

According to Salas, “elite businessmen, politicians, actors and athletes are willing to spend between EUR 600 and EUR 42,000 for a bit of pleasure with a cover girl,” a known model, singer or television host.

At the book launch, which Salas did not attend so he could maintain his anonymity, Spanish immigration police chief Carlos Botran said prostitution is inextricably linked to illegal immigration.

He said that in 2003, authorities smashed 192 prostitution rings, arresting 761 pimps or prostitutes.

Salas is a well-known figure in Spain, who published an expose after infiltrating the Spanish neo-Nazi movement.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

                                          Subject: Spanish news