Seven jailed over Swieqi brothel

A Bulgarian man and six women, five of them Moldovan and one from Bulgaria, have been jailed after pleading guilty to a number of charges in connection with a brothel which was operating from an apartment in Triq il-Molletta in Swieqi. It transpired that the man was taking care of the ‘administrative’ aspect of the business, while the women worked as prostitutes and shared the earnings together with him. The defendants whose age varied between 19 and 48 were arraigned this morning before Magistrate Josette Demicoli. The prosecution led by inspectors Joseph Busuttil and John Spiteri told the court that the arrests were made following an investigation over suspicions of human trafficking. However, it transpired that all of the women had willingly come to Malta to prostitute themselves, while the man had offered to ‘help’ them run the business. The court heard that there was no evidence whatsoever of abuse or human trafficking but purely a business to make "easy money". “They said that the money earned during a single month in Malta would be enough to pay the bills for up to two years back in Moldova and Bulgaria,” the prosecution said. Vasil Damyanov Telbizov, 48 from Bulgaria,...