A senior Air France manager has been charged for running a prostitution ring with his Brazilian wife, according to media reports.
The Jewish exec is alleged to have flown Brazilian prostitutes to Paris using cheap tickets, a perk of his job with the airline, to get the girls to France.
Since 2010 a senior Air France manager and his wife pulled in an estimated €2 million in cash per year from a prostitution ring they ran in Paris and which included at least 10 young female prostitutes, French daily Le Parisien reported.
Prosecutors told Le Parisien the company manager used a perk from his job, which allowed him to buy return tickets to Brazil for €150 a piece, to shuttle some of the prostitutes between Brazil and France.
As the operation was managing by his Brazilian wife, Claudia, 51, the manager identified only as 54-year-old Alain D., worked his day job managing flight crews at Charles de Gaulle airport, one of the airlines’ hubs.
But the lucrative business was stopped cold on Thursday when Alain D., his wife, and a second Brazilian woman were charged with human trafficking, pimping and criminal conspiracy.
Authorities believe Claudia was responsible for the day-to-day running of the ring, which saw the ten or so young women shuffled between four apartments in Paris, one of which was a city-owned property reserved for low-income renters.
But it appears the couple, and a third accomplice who was also charged, were anything but tenants in need of a subsidy. The young women were expected to have five encounters per day with customers who who were paying about €150 per visit.
Claudia is alleged to have handled the online marketing, the money as well as arranging the meetings for the young women. It was one of the prostitutes, a young Brazilian woman, who eventually went to police and prompted the investigation.
A fourth man, identified as Jose W, aged 50, portrayed himself as a mystical guru who charged the women up to €500 a time to ‘cheer them up and help them regain confidence in themselves,’ according to a source who spoke to Le Parisien newspaper.
The prostitution ring was finally exposed when one of the Brazilians filed a complaint about pimping and people trafficking.
All have now been charged and are in custody at Fresnes prison near Paris, said a police source close to the case.
He said the complainant arrived in Paris ‘as a student’ four years ago but was ‘forced by the couple’ to start having sex with up to five clients a day in the Rue de Rivoli flat.
