Manama: Three Asian men are being investigated for their role in a human trafficking racket busted by the Bahrain police.
The traffickers were arrested after an officer at Bahrain airport discovered that the passports of two Bangladeshi girls coming into the country were forged.
They told the police that they were 17 and 18 years old and that they had been sent to Bahrain to work as domestic helpers and that they had been given a contact number.
The police subsequently arrested the man waiting for them at the airport and he confessed that the plan was to transfer them to another man working in a hotel who would pay him 200 Bahraini dinars a month for each of the girls.
The Bangladeshi embassy has been contacted to verify the authenticity of their passports while the two girls were transferred to a government-run shelter to ensure their safety, the police said.
In Thailand, the Pattaya Daily News on Friday reported that an anti-human trafficking taskforce has arrested a fourth member of a human trafficking gang upon her return from Bahrain.
Aritsa Iammuang, 24, is a member of a network of Thai woman and Bahraini men who have been under investigation for several months.
The gang is thought to have been using various methods to lure Thai women to Bahrain to work as prostitutes against their will.
Three other suspects were arrested after their trafficking ways were revealed by two Thai victims to the Thai embassy in Bahrain last year.
Two more Thai nationals, who are believed to be involved in the illegal transnational trafficking gang, remain at large. Court sentences in these cases usually vary between 10 and 20 years in jail.
Earlier this month, the paper said that the Anti-Human Trafficking Division police had arrested a Thai woman involved in the trafficking of Thai women for prostitution in Bahrain.
Sureerat Chaiphrom, 34, was arrested after an international investigation found out that she was a major suspect in the trafficking of seven Thai women who had recently escaped from the traffickers and sought help from the Thai embassy in Bahrain.
The women had been deceived into going to Bahrain amid promises that they would be given decent jobs. Instead, they were forced to work in an entertainment venue as prostitutes, the victims said.
Chaiphrom, her husband and other people were running a transnational human trafficking network and paid for the women's airfares and visas with an understanding that they could pay them back after starting work in Bahrain, the paper said.
Chaiphrom denied the charges and insisted that she did not break the law and that the seven Thai women were fully aware of what they were going to do in Bahrain.
The network received up to $18,500 per girl when delivered to a customer. International arrest warrants are still outstanding for several other members of this transnational human trafficking network, one of which is believed to be Chaiphrom’s Bahraini husband, the paper reported.
