Court sentences, fines 2 men for human trafficking

The two men admit to bringing Chilean women to Israel to work as prostitutes.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Prostitute hooker street walker 390 (R) (photo credit: Edgard Garrido / Reuters)
Prostitute hooker street walker 390 (R)
(photo credit: Edgard Garrido / Reuters)
The Tel Aviv District Court on Monday imposed prison sentences and fines on two men, after they admitted charges of bringing Chilean women to Israel to work as prostitutes.
Under a plea bargain, Holon resident Nissim Talmid, 27, was sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined NIS 40,000. His co-defendant, 26- year-old Tel Aviv resident Moshe Orr, received an eighth-month prison term and a fine of NIS 20,000.
The court also imposed suspended sentences on both defendants.
Talmid and Orr were convicted under the Penal Code of causing a person to leave a country for prostitution, and procurement.
According to the indictment, Talmid got involved in the scheme in 2010 when his neighbor, a Chilean man named Roberto, offered a share in the profits if he helped him bring a Chilean woman to Israel to work as a prostitute. Talmid agreed to pay the woman’s airfare and hotel bill, but the scheme fell through when the woman arrived in Israel, regretted her decision and went home.
Some time later, Orr agreed to help Talmid and Roberto bring several more women from Chile to work as prostitutes.
Talmid paid for the women’s travel and Orr published advertisements stating that the women would provide sexual services.
The women arrived in Israel in January 2011. Talmid and Roberto met them at the airport and told them they would provide sexual services to paying “clients,” and that the women would have to hand over some of their earnings to cover the costs of bringing them to Israel.
Talmid and Orr also gave the women cellphones and condoms, the indictment said.
Just one night after the women arrived in Israel, they were made to provide sexual services to up to six clients each. However, shortly afterwards, police uncovered the prostitution ring when they raided the women’s hotel room for drugs.