A 55-year-old man from Roosendaal who is suspected of exploiting Thai women will remain in custody for the time being. The judge determined this on Tuesday during an introductory session in Breda. The man is said to have lured the women to the Netherlands last year, after which they were forced to have sex with customers in a salon in Belgium for months.
The police raided that massage parlor in December after tapping conversations and messages. Roosendaler, 55, and three of his family members were arrested. The other suspects are still at large, the man from Roosendaal has been detained since the end of April.
“Those women had no choice but to do this to pay off their debt.”
Two Thai women and a trans woman aged 29, 30 and 38 worked in the massage parlour. They would have been lured to the Netherlands by the man with lies. On arrival, he allegedly told them that they had to pay back the costs of their journey of at least 10,000 euros first. Then he would have made sex arrangements for the ladies. One of the women had three to four clients a day. Another had to have unintentional sex more than 200 times in a few months, it is suspected.
The man is sitting in a tracksuit in court on Tuesday and is bent over on his table. He listens to the prosecutor with a straight face. He demands that the man remain detained. “He clearly took advantage of their vulnerable position,” says the officer. “The women were relatively young and were not in the same position as the Dutch prostitute. They had no choice but to do this to pay off their debt. I can’t explain that if someone does something like that, they can wait for their punishment in freedom.”
According to the public prosecutor, there is also a chance that the man will flee abroad. He has family in the Philippines and is said to have looked up ways to obtain Spanish citizenship on the internet late last year. But according to the man, that was looked up by a Colombian employee of the salon and not by himself.
“I’m not an idiot who brings people here to get kinky.”
The suspect denies having anything to do with the case. “I’m not an idiot who brings people here to get kinky. I had a large brewery, with a turnover of 65,000 euros per year, and a massage parlour. I have no reason to do this.” Because the other suspects are also still at large, his lawyer demands that he also be released.
However, the judge has decided that the man will remain in custody. He was also convicted of human smuggling last year and therefore there is a good chance that he will go wrong again. The man will remain in jail until the next hearing on October 18. Even then, nothing substantive is discussed.
2023-08-08 09:56:42
#Women #forced #prostitution #massage #parlor #suspect #remains #custody
