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Israeli police crushes international prostitute ring

The Israeli police announced on Sunday it had crushed an international criminal network involved in recruiting thousands of women from former Soviet republics for prostitution abroad.

The operation, code-named Octopus Tentacles, was the concluding stage of measures carried out in the past two years by the police from Israel, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Similar arrests were earlier made in former Soviet republics.

According to Israeli investigators, the criminal group members frequently acted with the help of corrupted officials, recruiting women in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldavia and Uzbekistan and largely sending them to work in illegal brothels in Israel.

The criminal group members arrested in Israel face at least 20 years of imprisonment.