The legal defense of the two men arrested in the Flor de Loto Operation, accused of the sexual exploitation of at least 45 Colombian and Venezuelan women, alleges that the foreign women traveled to the country voluntarily to engage in prostitution, as reported in Diario Libre.
Lawyer Elvin Domínguez states that said activity is not punishable in the Dominican Republic.
The Public Ministry is requesting preventive detention in the hearing on Wednesday, 17 July 2024 against the two men.
The defense lawyers says in the case presented there are none of the elements such as deceit, violence, threats, among others that are characteristic of human trafficking, on which the charges are made.
Junior David Matos Monegro (Junior) and Estarly Almánzar Pérez are accused of leading an alleged network that recruits women in Colombia and Venezuela to sexually exploit them in the Dominican Republic.
The Santiago Prosecutor’s Office and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Illicit Traffic of Migrants and Human Trafficking, with the support of the National Police, announced the rescue of 45 women, forty-three of them Colombian and two Venezuelan, who were allegedly being exploited.
According to the accusation, the traffickers and pimps kept the foreigners captive in several apartments located in the Molina VI and Tecasa Dorado II, V and VI residential complexes, in Los Rieles de Gurabo, where they were sexually exploited.
It establishes that the defendants traveled to Colombia to select and recruit their victims, paying for their migration and housing processes, thus tying the victims to this debt. The women would repay the debt by performing sexual work.
The Public Ministry says that the women were victims of commercial sexual exploitation and other related crimes.
The men, arrested during the operation, had control of the identity documents of some of these victims and, in addition, controlled the payments made by their clients. The sexual services were offered in a catalog with the prices through the WhatsApp messaging platform.
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Diario Libre
17 July 2024