A Moscow court jailed a Russian military intelligence officer and 10 Russian, Moldovan and Israeli accomplices for up to 19 years yesterday for trafficking women from former Soviet republics.

“Eleven members of an inter-national crime syndicate were convicted by a military tribunal in Moscow, an unprecedented judgment in the history of Russia” since the fall of the Soviet Union, Vitali Danilov, who led the probe, told journalists.

Military intelligence officer Dmitry Strykanov, a key member of the syndicate, was sentenced to 12 years in jail and was stripped of his military rank. Investigators said the group had operated between 1999 and 2007.

It had sold nearly 130 women from Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Russia into prostitution in Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates between 1999 and 2007.

In the course of a two-year probe, the investigators uncovered workshops for manufacturing false travel documents.

Prostitution is tolerated in Russia, but in recent years the authorities have beefed up legislation against human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.