German mega-brothel linked to Hells Angels raided by police in Berlin
Agence France-Presse
14 April 2016
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... ded-by-police-in-b/

More than 900 German police, tax and customs investigators raided Berlin's biggest brothel, charging it is linked to the Hells Angels biker gang, and making six arrests, authorities said on Thursday.

They detained the two managers of the so-called nude sauna club "Artemis" and four "madames" in the raid, in which they encountered 117 prostitutes and more than 100 clients, said police and prosecutors.

Prostitution is legal in Germany, but police charge that the four-storey brothel complex constituted a system of "brutal and illegal prostitution" that severely exploited dependent women.

Those detained in the overnight raid are accused of tax fraud and withholding social security contributions, said police, who added that they were also investigating possible human trafficking by the club.

Most of the women were from eastern Europe, Russia and several Arab countries.

Hells Angels bikers allegedly procured women for the club in return for favours including free admission, said state prosecutor Sjors Kampstra.

Police acted on information from a prostitute who had spoken out after fleeing her ex-partner, a Hells Angels biker, who had allegedly mistreated her.

Investigators focused on tax evasion charges "like they did with Al Capone", said Berlin chief prosecutor Andreas Behm, referring to the charges that landed the infamous 1920s US-Italian mafia boss behind bars.

Police charge that while Artemis had officially engaged the women as "self-employed" sex workers, the prostitutes were in fact regular employees with set work hours, price rates and instructions to perform specific sexual acts.

By withholding social security payments for them, the club had cheated the state out of at least 17.5 million euros, on top of its alleged tax evasion, said Michael Kulus from the Berlin customs office.

To help settle the bill, police said they had confiscated 6.4 million euros in cash, cars and property, also including 12 apartments and other premises in Berlin and nationwide.

I'm not really surprised that this is true.  As the majority of brothels are run by organized crime syndicates.

In Germany prostitution is completely legal and regularized. In this country you can find thousands of clubs and certainly not all will be in compliance with the law but a big police raid like this in the most big and famous FKK of the country that surprised me!

And again 900 police agent for a brothel raid? come on Germany and Europe have more big problem with immigrant. where were all this police during a Happy New Year Raping Fest in Cologne???

As in France where they make pay for sex illegal, is better the France Governament thinking about all terrorist they have inside a banlieue.

They were open again 10 hours later.

I visited there this evening. The bullshit factor is at least as high as Palace. The pimps clearly run the show there, just like they do with Palace. Look for a report from me in a few days.

I saw a documentary where the owner of the Palace franchise is about to open a new branch...along a busy highway just across the French border.

And in which country will those euros be spent?

JtB

Shit... I was thinking about booking a ticket to Berlin... Was the line-up acceptable after the raid?

The deployment of such a large scale police force might be some move to please the US which has a strong anti-prostitution foreign politics policy. The US establishment considers the men who pay for such things are committing sexual violence on women and their anti-prostitution stance is  a major pillar of foreign intervention. The US government does not provide "aid" to countries that legalise it. We should note here that Germany stretched existing laws to a maximum in this case, and this might be an indicator that Germany will start the move to illegalise it again. The US demands Nordic style laws and very likely refer to Korea as a "model example" (it is a known fact that Korea's laws enacted in 2004 were a result of US pressure). Neighboring France has already followed that way. Germany's military has been reduced to almost nothing operable left these days and the US is providing military aid. If Germany does not conform, US can end its defence commitment and this way it worked in Korea. Germany is vulnerable to Russia's closure of rail and road as it does not have sufficient access to sea transport(which comprises over 90% of international trade). Prostitution and geopolitics issues cannot be separated from each other due to this. In HK's case, while it is not likely that it will follow the way dictated by US policy(as being a PRC SAR), it might follow China's way in the long term.(an administrative offence there,being totally illegal) as China is moving to control things centrally. This is why many things in Macau are no more. In Korea,overseas prostitution is an area under jurisdiction of intelligence agencies. A few buildings look suspicious.