Alex Trelinski
A BRITISH couple who were arrested for allegedly running a UK prostitution ring will be extradited from Spain by the National Court.
They were previously convicted for an identical crime in Britain in 2009.
Neil Lock, 43, from Griñon in the Madrid region agreed to the order on Tuesday, after his wife Natalie- also 43- initially opposed the application last Friday.
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They are accused of running a website from Spain and operating apartments in the United Kingdom where 35 women were sexually exploited.
Each of the victims were supplied with accommodation to conduct their business and the Locks are accused of taking 40% of each client payment.
The women were forced to work up to 21 hours per day.
UK prosecutors said that text messages on a phone belonging to one of the women revealed ‘extremely aggressive control’ over them including threats to keep them in line.
British authorities said that an associate of the Locks- with the initials A.B.- threatened to unpixilate her photo from the website to reveal her real name if she did not obey him.
When she said she was pregnant, A.B. ‘threatened her’ and insinuated that if she left the criminal operation, she would ‘suffer unspecified consequences’.
“In the course of the crime, many millions of pounds were transferred to the various accounts of the Locks, which appear to have funded their lifestyle,” according to British authorities.
The defendants were previously convicted in the UK of managing prostitution for profit between 2007 and 2008 in an online business similar to the one currently under investigation.
They created a website called Notorious Girls, which netted the Locks thousands of pounds a week.
They were sentenced to several years in prison back in 2009.
The Efe news agency reported that Neil Lock agreed to the extradition in order to resolve the legal situation faced by the couple.
He made it clear that the couple intend to return to Spain, where they have lived since 2015 with their four children.
His wife, Natalie, opposed extradition on the basis the order is based on mere suspicions and that having lived in Spain with her family for nine years, the appropriate body to prosecute them would be within the country.
She told the National Court that she was not aware of the existence of proceedings against her or her husband.
They were arrested on March 20 and both worked remotely for a website hosting company based in Alicante.
The Court concluded that though alleged criminal activity took place in Griñon, ‘human trafficking, prostitution and sexual exploitation, as well as the transfers of the proceeds of them, took place in the United Kingdom, where the victims, the evidence and criminal proceedings are located’.
The National Court said: “Spain has been a refuge to relapse into activities for which they were already convicted in the United Kingdom and which are being investigated in that country.”
In respect to their family, the judges noted that two of their children are of legal age with two minors in their care.
According to UK authorities, the Lanes and a business partner managed the prostituted women from Spain, with two drivers back in Britain who ‘looked after them’ and supervised the payments.
An international arrest warrant was issued by Birmingham Magistrates Court last November for charges of coercive prostitution and sexual exploitation, membership of a criminal organisation, human trafficking and money laundering.
