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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Three Sentenced in El Salvador for Sex
Trafficking
SAN SALVADOR – A judge in El Salvador
sentenced three people to eight years in
prison for forcing Salvadoran women into
prostitution in Guatemala, a judicial
spokesman told Efe Tuesday.
The spokesman said that the verdict was
handed down by a court in the western city
of Santa Ana last month, although it was
only announced recently because of the
“voluminous and complex” nature of the case.
The court found Salvadoran brothers Gonzalo
and Oscar Humberto Cerritos Ramirez and
Guatemalan Sonia Argentina Garcia Flores
guilty of people trafficking.
Testifying in the case were nine Salvadoran
women, several of them minors, who were
deceived into letting themselves be taken to
Guatemala, where they were then forced to
work as prostitutes.
The daily El Diario de Hoy on Tuesday
reported that the Cerritos Ramirez brothers
worked as security guards in the brothel
where they held the women.
Garcia Flores was the brothel’s cashier and
was in charge of keeping the women drugged
so they could not escape, the paper
reported.
The victims were sold for $200 or $300 each
to Adan Cerritos and Maria Elena Lopez de
Cerritos, a Salvadoran couple running the El
Pantanal brothel in the Guatemalan province
of Santa Rosa, El Diario said.
The women were lured to Guatemala with
promises of work by Salvadorans Marco
Antonio Godoy, an alleged gang member, and
Marta Lidia Aguirre, who are fugitives from
justice.
Salvadoran authorities received the first
complaint in the case in August 2006, which
prompted them to begin an investigation
along with their counterparts in Guatemala.
EFE
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