MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow City Court Friday sentenced a 28-year-old man to seven years in prison for trafficking women from Uzbekistan to brothels in the United Arab Emirates.
An investigation established that Pavel Golenko had set up a gang that operated over four months in 2004 by promising women in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, well-paid jobs overseas. After being met and supplied with false passports in Moscow, they were sent to the UAE, where they were forced into prostitution.
Golenko was arrested on December 13, 2004 at a Moscow airport while he was sending a group of women to the UAE. The women managed to warn the police before departure.
The prostitute-trafficking ring was broken up in the UAE in February 2005, following Golenko's arrest.
Deputy Head of the Police Human Rights Department in Dubai Aref Baker said at the time that police had detained the organizers of a criminal network and 38 girls and women aged from 15 years and older.
The majority of the women came from Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian republics and had spent two to three years in captivity, the official said.
