It is just over a year since Dagbladet knocked on the door and told the man in his 60s that sex was being sold from his rental apartment on the floor above in the residential building in the center of Stavanger.
– Shocking, said the man.
Now he has been charged and remanded in custody following a major police operation in the Stavanger area, in what the police believe is a pimp case with international ties.
– He pleads not guilty to the charge and cooperates with the police, says Eirik Myhre, father of the legal firm Legal, which represents the man in his 60s.
– He has explained how he has run his rental business and taken the reservations that he must make as a landlord, says Myhre.
It was NRK that mentioned the matter first.
Another man in his 50s has also been charged.
– My client denies criminal guilt, says lawyer Odd Rune Torstrup.
– He says he is not guilty of what he has charged and that he did not facilitate prostitution, says Torstrup.
Two women have also been charged in the case. As of today, Dagbladet does not know the identity of these.
17 women
On 1 November, the police raided 36 apartments linked to the two men as owners or sub-tenants.
– In ten of the apartments they found a total of 17 women who were prostitutes, mainly from Eastern European and Latin American countries, says police attorney Karen Mork in the South-West police district.
– The case is still being fully investigated, says police attorney Mork.
The hidden sex networks
Renting out a home that is used for sex sales is a criminal offence, if you know that the home is being used for sex sales, or show gross negligence because you should have known. It is considered pimping.
Both men are connected to the rental business in the city, according to Mork.
The court documents in the case are exempt from public disclosure, but Dagbladet knows that the police believe the business has been organized and is using the so-called mafia-paragrafen which opens to give organized groups of criminals more severe punishment.
– Some apartments were empty, and we link other apartments to previous prostitution activities. Our hypothesis is that the scope is greater than what appeared in this campaign, says Mork.
The police also found several sex clients who the police will direct an investigation against in due course, according to police attorney Karen Mork in the Sør-West police district.
THE LAWYER: Eirik Myhre represents the man in his 60s. Photo: Vecora. view more
Got the address
Dagbladet has told through several articles about how organized pimp networks control Eastern European women in prostitution in Norway.
These are often referred to as “agencies” or “byrås”, which often manage the women’s journey and provide accommodation. The pimp networks often take half of what the women earn, Dagbladet’s investigations show.
One of the networks operated throughout Norway, from Kristiansand to Tromsø.
It was when Dagbladet contacted two of the women in this network that we were given the address of the rental flat of the man in his 60s, who is now a hooligan.
Last November we knocked on the door and met a woman. She said she was Ukrainian, but did not want to talk to the journalist.
The Stavanger landlord later said that he was shocked by what Dagbladet had found out. He denied any knowledge that sex was sold from the address, or that he was part of any network.
Rented out for sex sales: – Shocked
The rental company rents out several apartments in Stavanger, and had a turnover of NOK 3-4 million annually for the past three years. According to the landlord, the company rented out 15 apartments in Stavanger.
The man in his 60s then said that he had extensive experience renting out apartments in Stavanger, and that he had come across several similar situations related to their properties.
– We have had suspicions and have had a dialogue with the police a few years ago where we went through some of these types of issues. It is not something that we can see at any time when checking in, it is only when they have lived for some time that we can unravel things, the landlord told Dagbladet last year.
Foreign contact
Mork confirms that the police are also investigating what possible connections there may be between the two men accused of pimping and foreign pimp networks, according to Mork.
– There are traces of contact with that type of business, although we have not yet uncovered what it might actually be about, says Mork.
Dagbladet’s investigations showed that the nationwide network was probably controlled from Russia.
– Have you seen from where these networks operate?
– I don’t want to go out with that now. On a general basis, we have seen in other cases with connections to both Russia and other countries. There we see others who manage and organize it, far from where it happens.
Mork says that the police will investigate whether any of the women may be victims of human trafficking – but that they have no basis for linking possible human trafficking to the landlords.
– There is no reason to suspect that those charged have engaged in human trafficking. But whether any of the women are trafficked is another question, says Mork.
2023-12-23 18:30:22
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