Israeli police investigate sex trade to Ireland

AUTHORITIES in Israel are investigating claims that Israeli women were trafficked to Dublin where they were forced to have sex after their passports were seized.

According to the Israeli media, the women accepted job offers to work in the sex industry in London but were flown to Ireland instead.

Ynet News reported that the women were only told they were going to Ireland and not London when they got to the airport.

Upon landing in Dublin, the women’s passports were seized and they were driven to apartments, where they were locked up and forced to work as prostitutes and use drugs.

Several months later, they were released without being paid.

They returned to Israel but did not report what they went through to the police, apparently for fear of being exposed.

The women had answered an advertisement in the Israeli media for women to work in the sex industry in London for up to €1,000 and it was those advertisements that brought the matter to the attention of the police.

An aid organisation for foreign workers filed a complaint about the ad with police and during the probe an undercover policewoman, who presented herself as a student, met with one of the orchestrators of the activity, Angelica Sabag.

Ynet News said it emerged that Sabag was working for a chain of pimps here in Ireland.

She was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport, and denied the allegations against her.

If convicted, Sabag may face up to 10 years in prison for soliciting for prostitution. This is the second case of sex trafficking in Ireland to hit the headlines in only a few days.

Over the weekend, Zhang Chang Hai was given a life sentence for the murder of Qu Mei Na, alleged to have been one of a number of women trafficked into Dublin by Hai.