By IANS/EFE,
Mexico City : Three Mexican nationals, including a woman, have been sentenced to more than 25 years in prison for forcing a group of young women to work as prostitutes in the US, officials said.
Emiliano Romero Ramirez and Maria Juana Rugerio Saucedo were each sentenced to 37 years and six months in jail, while Cristina Hernandez Suarez will serve 28 years and six months behind bars.
The convicts – arrested in December 2009 at the request of the US embassy – must also pay damages to the victims, the Council of the Federal Judiciary, which supervises most of Mexico’s federal courts, said.
The traffickers recruited the women “by trickery or force” in Tenancingo town and then shipped them off to the US to work as prostitutes, the officials said.
The criminals, according to investigations carried out by US authorities, operated from 2007 till early 2009.