Dozens of sex workers to be quizzed as part of investigation into crime group operating in Ireland

Up to 850 women are advertised daily on Ireland’s main platform for the sex industry.

Dozens of women who worked in the Irish sex industry are expected to be interviewed as witnesses in a probe into an organised crime group suspected of running a prostitution operation in Ireland.

Women who worked for the organisation operated across the country, including during the pandemic. It is understood that the operation targeted rural towns including Killarney, Tralee, Carlow, Maynooth, Athlone, and Wexford, as well as Cork, Limerick, Dublin, Galway, and Kilkenny.

Fourteen people suspected of being key players in the Czech Republic in organising prostitution in Ireland between 2019 and last year were arrested and charged last November. However, investigations are continuing, with many sex workers organised by the group in Ireland either having already been interviewed or set to be interviewed.

Part of the probe has centred on communications such as messaging apps to build a picture of how the organisation ran its Irish operation.

Some of those arrested are accused of having established a network of people in 2019, with the purpose of obtaining a profit through organising prostitution north and south of the border. If convicted, those suspected of being the chief organisers of the operation could face 12 years in prison.

A spokesman for the Czech investigators told the Irish Examiner that they are not currently collaborating with gardaí in the probe.

Investigations by the Czech authorities found that the group was involved in the recruitment of sex workers from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as organising the transport and accommodation for them. Communication with customers was also part of the operation, as was the advertising of sexual services.

Covert communications

A key aspect of the group’s operation in Ireland was that all communication took place covertly through closed groups on mobile apps, according to police. Nicknames were used in the communication in a bid to ensure that the group’s operation could go without detection.

Director of the SERP Institute, Ruth Breslin, welcomes the investigation, particularly its focus on the organisation of the operation. She said that up to 850 women are advertised daily on Ireland’s main advertising platform for the sex industry. “The vast majority are young, vulnerable migrants,” she said.

Ms Breslin continued: “The Government needs to take urgent action to tackle those responsible for sexual exploitation, but also to hold accountable those behind the technology that facilitates the sex trade in Ireland.”

She said the institute is calling for:

• A phased legal and enforcement strategy to investigate and prosecute the companies that own and manage prostitution websites for advertising the sale of controlled and trafficked women and for profiting from the prostitution of others 
• Improved resources for the Garda National Protective Services Bureau (GNPSB) and its divisional and specialist units to strengthen dedicated law enforcement measures to disrupt the business model and profits of platforms facilitating sexual exploitation 
• The current protections provided to vulnerable persons in prostitution throughout Ireland to be strengthened, whilst also ensuring that all women in prostitution have access to the specialist services and exiting supports provided by Ruhama that can assist them to recover from their experiences of sexual exploitation and build new lives 
• Better evidence to be gathered on the ways in which newer platforms, such as Telegram, are being used to organise prostitution in Ireland and are increasingly being used by some sex buyers to locate those in prostitution, as well as exploring how technology is being employed by pimps and traffickers in Ireland and beyond to store, distribute and sell explicit content — including images, videos and livestreamed content — featuring sexually exploited women and girls.