Thursday, 18 October 2007, 21:25 GMT 22:25 UK

Finland stops 'prostitution ring'

Police and border guards in Finland have dismantled a prostitution ring run from the city of St Petersburg in neighbouring Russia, officials say.
[color="Navy"]They said about 150 women, most of them from Russia, worked as prostitutes in Finnish hotels in about 20 cities.

The ring also provided prostitutes for Britain and Norway, police said.

Prostitution is legal in Finland but procurement, or pimping, is illegal. Human trafficking was also outlawed by Finland's parliament in 2004.

The prostitutes paid the organisers of the ring US$500 to $700 (£244 to £342) a day and had their names advertised on the group's website, Seppo Sillanpaa, the head of the police investigation, told the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Sillanpaa said the women, mostly aged 25 to 35, operated in reputable hotels.

Finnish authorities said they were holding about 20 people as suspects but the suspected leader of the operation, who was in Russia, had not been interviewed.

Last year, a court in Helsinki sentenced eight members of an Estonian-Finnish gang to prison for[color="navy"] bringing 15 Estonian women to Finland and forcing them to work as prostitutes from 2005 to 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7051464.stm

white men force white women to work as prostitutes