Guardia Civil tracks down gang who posed as pimps to extort money

The Guardia Civil has arrested three people who posed as pimps to extort money from clients who had tried to use their services.

The Guardia Civil, within the “Emere” operation, has arrested three people belonging to a group who posed as pimps to extort money from clients who had tried to use their services. The detainees, who have numerous records for similar events, operated throughout Spain.

The operation began in March, following a complaint filed by a citizen at the San Juan post (Alicante) in which he claimed to be a victim of the crime of extortion since a week before he had been in Murcia and had contacted a woman through a dating website set up by people posing as pimps.

The meeting between the two had not taken place, however, from that day on he had begun to receive messages on his phone in which a person claimed the cost of the service for the arranged appointment in Murcia, under threat that If he did not pay it, the claimant, accompanied by some partners, would go to his home to “settle the matter”.

Although the appointment had not taken place, the complainant paid the amount of €580 for the inconvenience caused. The next day, he received another message demanding money so that he could remove him from the list and settle the matter. On this occasion, the amount they demanded was €950.

According to what the citizen told the officers, he felt very afraid since he tried to explain to the person that he was working and that they would talk later, but he did not agree to wait, raising the tone of the threats that he needed to pay or there would be serious consequences.

For this reason, the Guardia Civil continued with the investigations to locate the alleged perpetrator. As a result, the officers found out that behind these threats there was an organized group.

This group used different social networks to locate possible victims, to whom they offered a date of a sexual nature. Subsequently, they collected the necessary information that they later used to successfully complete the extortion. The encounters never took place, however, using threats against the victims and their families, they demanded payment for the service.

As a result of this investigation, the agents located two members of the gang in Valencia, a 53-year-old man who was the alleged perpetrator of the threats and a 28-year-old woman, the alleged perpetrator with whom the alleged prostitution services were contracted. In the second phase of exploitation of the operation, the leader of the group, a 44-year-old man, was arrested in Murcia.

The group had been committing crimes since January of this year throughout Spain, with complaints in La Coruña, Madrid, Valencia, Malaga, Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

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