Nancy: Up to eight years in prison required for Brazilian pimps

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: Loic Venance/AFP 17:48 p.m., October 11, 2023

Sentences of up to eight years in prison were requested on Wednesday by the prosecutor's office for seven of the ten Brazilian pimps and their little hands tried since Monday by the specialized interregional court (JIRS) of Nancy.

Eight years' imprisonment has been requested for a man nicknamed "Bruno", considered to be the head of the international pimping network. For the man who initiated the separation of the network into two branches (a Spanish branch and a Portuguese branch), six years were requested.

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Ten people were dismissed for aggravated pimping

For switchboard operators, the network's small hands, sentences ranging from three to five years' imprisonment were requested. For the person in charge of driving "Bruno" or sometimes prostitutes to Malaga airport, from where they joined France, 18 months' imprisonment, 12 of which were suspended, were requested. Two of the ten people on trial are still the subject of an arrest warrant. The JIRS's decision is expected on Thursday.

Initially, ten people, including four women, were returned for aggravated pimping, human trafficking, money laundering and criminal association committed in France, Spain and Portugal between 2019 and June 2022. Three of them, former prostitutes who rose through the ranks of the network, have already been the subject of a procedure of appearance on prior admission of guilt, a kind of guilty plea in the French style.

282 prostitution addresses

Based on anonymous information, in March 2021, the Mobile Brigade for Zonal Border Research uncovered the existence of a network with a structured and dematerialized organization allowing the remote management from Spain and Portugal of the prostitution of a hundred women, almost all of Brazilian nationality, in France. It alone concentrated 282 addresses of prostitution spread over 64 cities in France and 44 departments, from Nancy to Bordeaux via Tours.

While women prostituted themselves almost autonomously and unsupervised, in reality, they were subject to schedules as well as an obligation to achieve results: half of their earnings were then transferred to Brazil, in order to be laundered there. The head of the network and its switchboard operators took them from town to town, according to supply and demand, which only they appreciated.