Spain, France bust human-trafficking ring

Scores of suspected traffickers have been arrested in Spain and France in a crackdown on a group that had allegedly been smuggling Chinese nationals into Europe and the United States.

Spanish police said that as a result of a two-year joint investigation, 51 people were arrested Saturday in Spain, with another 24 arrests reported in France.

The alleged leaders of the operation were apprehended in Barcelona.

The Spanish interior ministry said the gang charged up to $66,700 a head to transport mainly Chinese and Malaysian nationals to the U.S., Britain, Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Turkey. Some of the people trafficked ended up in the sex trade, the ministry said.

The group's main European hub was allegedly the Barcelona airport; the city was reportedly used as a stop-off point for Chinese nationals while false documents were prepared.

A total of 81 fraudulent passports from South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Japan were recovered in the raids, as well as fake immigration stamps, Chinese and European currencies, and weapons including a handgun. 

"The composition of this perfectly structured, hierarchical organization, with its kingpin in China and independent cells operating in different countries, completely shut off from each other, complicated the investigation," a police statement said.

According to the investigation, the traffickers accompanied their clients all the way from China to Spain -- the last stop before the final destination, usually the United Kingdom or the United States, it said.

The route taken from China, as well as the travel documents used, "changed constantly according to the successes and failures of previous trips... or in order to prevent discovery of the traffickers."

Millions of people are believed to be victims of human trafficking around the world with 80,000 traded across international borders each year, according to the U.S. Department of State. 

The fight against such human trafficking rings is difficult in part because many victims do not identify themselves as victims. With little to no resources other than the very people that have gotten them into trafficking rings, the victims often don't know how to speak out on their own behalf -- if they are even able to speak the language of their new country.

Grace Rui, counselor advocate for the New York Asian Women's Center, said that many of the victims are looking for the "American dream" when they fall into the trafficking trap.

The traffickers will visit Chinese villages, for example, and work to convince people that "'if you come to the U.S., you can make a lot of money,'" Rui told Al Jazeera.

Those who are enticed by the potential new opportunity will often borrow money from friends and family to help pay the traffickers and cover travel expenses.

But when the hopeful migrants show up in big cities like New York on a six-month tourist visa set up by the traffickers, they usually find themselves "tricked" into working labor-intensive jobs for "long hours every day in order to survive" -- with little pay, Rui added. In the case of victims forced into sex-trafficking, often many of them "don't even know they are breaking the law" by performing sex acts at massage parlors, for example.

The victims are forced to trust that the traffickers have their best interest in mind because they don't know the customs of the country they are in.

"They don't speak English. They don't know anybody. They don't have money," Rui said. "They are very defensive and they don't trust authority because they don't know who they can trust."

Ehab Zahriyeh contributed to this report. With Al Jazeera and wire services.