During the raids, investigators uncovered a large number of mobile devices in both Belgium and Spain, which were used by the suspects to communicate with clients and send instructions to victims. This reveals that there was no direct victim-client communication and that the suspects could retain control over the victims. The victims had no choice but to accept any client, with the services to provide, location and payment already arranged by the criminal network. In total, authorities identified more than 200 victims. Over the past 3 years, the investigators monitored about 3 000 advertisements linked to that network, suggesting that the real number of the victims is much higher.
Forensic sub-focus of the operational taskforce Lotus
The online aspect was an important facilitation factor in the functioning of this sexual exploitation ring. The joint investigative activities enabled by Task Force Lotus has led to the dismantling of an important part of this network. The investigations are however not over; as part of this task force, Europol organised a one-week forensic sprint to coordinate and speed up the follow-up investigations.
During this week, 15 experts from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Switzerland extracted together tens of terabytes of data from hundreds of seized devices. By carrying out this extraction jointly, as opposed to each participating country performing this work for itself, the process took a few days instead of potentially months. The result of these common efforts will serve operational analysis and further investigations into the activities of this human trafficking network.
First forensic sprint at Europol to speed up human trafficking investigations
