AMSTERDAM - Police and justice have opened the attack on the escort industry. On Tuesday, the National Criminal Investigation Department shut down the websites of two escort agencies. The owners are suspected of involvement in human trafficking and exploitation. Two men have been arrested, a third is wanted.

The suspected companies, Zuzana.com and Pleasure-escort.com, offered girls from Eastern Europe who provided their services in hotels along the highway. Police sent a text message to 1,300 customers of these agencies. It said, 'This site is offering suspected victims of human trafficking. Police are asking for your help.' 'This is the first time since the lifting of the brothel ban, in 2000, that we are taking action against escort agencies in this way,' said a justice spokesman. 'This is just the beginning. This industry can count on our continued attention.' Window operators and brothel owners have been monitored fairly strictly since the !equalization of prostitution, but municipalities do not supervise escort businesses adequately. The police suspect gross abuses in this industry, such as coercion and exploitation. Evidence of this would have been found in this case. The recheche received a tip through Report Crime Anonymous last year. Research yielded indications that employees of pleasure-escort.nl knew that their prostitutes were being exploited. They had to hand over a large portion of their earnings, according to police.

Prostitutes were known from porn movies

Investigators suspect Zuzana.com of recruiting Eastern European prostitutes. That falls under women traveling throughout Europe and receiving clients in hotel rooms and apartments under the Criminal Code. The website listed who was in town. 'It's like a traveling drcus,' the justice spokesman said. Zuzana contradicts that women were recruited. The company has a file of 150 prostitutes, mostly from the Czech Republic and Hungary, verLelt a business partner, who has gone into hiding. 'The girls email and text us asking if they can come again,' he states. 'There is a waiting list of several months.

Ln practice, Zuzana rented two or three hotel rooms in the Van der Valk hotel near Schiphol Airport or in the Ibis hotel near Badhoevedorp. They stayed there for a week and received two to five clients a day. They usually stayed for an hour and paid 200 euros each. The 32-year-old owner Mark H., who was arrested Tuesday, recruited clients through his site. The company began eight years ago with three girls. The agency grew stormily, thanks in part to prostitutes known from porn movies "There they earn only 400 euros for a hard day of shooting. However, their fame brings additional clients as escorts. That work is easier and pays better,' says the business partner At first, Zuzana earned only 500 euros for an ad on the site. Later, the business took on more tasks. 'The girls wanted us to make their appointments.' The agency paid half of the travel and hotel expenses. 'We got a discount, hotels were happy with us.' The prostitutes give up 40 percent of their earnings to the company. They would be left with 2,SOO to 3,000 euros per week.

Three months ago, Van der Valk and Ibis announced that the prostitutes were no longer welcome. Since then, Zuzana says she has been renting three apartments in Amsterdam and The Hague. One per girl, otherwise the apartment counts as a brothel and for that the papers are missing. Zuzana applied in vain for a license. The business partner says H. was also arrested six months ago on suspicion of human traffickingL At that time, all of Zuzana's prostitutes were interrogated. According to him, the prosecution demanded 18 months in prison, but the judge released H. in early December 2010 due to lack of evidence. In late 2009, police, the OM and Koninklijke Horeca Nederland drew up a "helping hand" to combat illegal hotels. This stated, among other things, that chambermaids and receptionists should pay attention to whether female guests do not sit in their hotel rooms all day and frequently order clean sheets. According to Frans Hazen ofKoninldijke Horeca Nederland, it is time for hoteliers to intervene more actively. 'There has to be a change of pace.' Hazen promises to cooperate more with the police. 'Every hotel has a social function. Anyone who knowingly allows prostitution risks expulsion and thus his reputation.' The Van der Valk hotel chain let it be known that it cannot possibly control all that happens in hotel rooms.