Sex TraffickingArchive 2008–2016

Sex Trafficking in Moscow (2011)

A sex trafficking case from 2011 in Moscow, Russia.

This page describes exploitation and abuse. Need to report something? How to report →

Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?

What happened

Igor Slearev and Avi Yanai were found by The Moscow District Military Court to be leaders of an international human trafficking ring. Lt. Col. Dmitry Strykanov of the foreign military intelligence directorate was also found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in a high security prison. Through deceit the criminal group drew women and smuggled them to Europe and the Middle East, where they were forced to engage in prostitution, according to the Prosecutor General's Office. Approximately one hundred and thirty women are victims in the case, among them citizens of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova and Russia. Most of the women were sold to Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, Holland and the United Arab Emirates.

Response and intervention

FSB officials said the activities of the criminal group were stopped in an joint operation with Russian police and the Prosecutor General's Office, Moscow prosecutors, law-enforcement bodies of Moscow's southeastern district, and their colleagues from Italy and Finland, and the Interpol's General Secretariat. The investigation was handed over to military prosecutors, because Lt-Col Dmitry Strykanov was among the arrested persons. According to investigators, dummy firms were set up in a number of Russian towns, which concluded fictitious contracts with Russian citizens seeking jobs abroad, in order to illegally come in possession of their foreign travel passports. These firms then drew up documents for valid visas through tourist firms with photos of other persons. Photos were replaced in an illegal laboratory. No victim aftercare was reported. The Moscow District Military Court earlier found 11 of the 13 suspects in this case guilty. The court found charges of organizing a criminal group, brought against Lt. Col Strykanov unproven, and named Igor Slesarev and Avi Yanai as the group's leaders. Yanai and Slesarev got the longest terms, respectively 18 and 19 years, in a high security prison, plus a fine amounting to 600,000 rubles each. Of the eleven convicted criminals, two got suspended sentences, including Anna Stoyan who was granted a five year period of probation, and Igor Vlad, who got a five-year suspended sentence. Some of the victims' lawsuits have been granted and they will get more than 2 million rubles in damages, in all. Yanai had been convicted twice in Haifa, Israel. Israeli police are investigating several cases in relation to Yanai, including on counts of trafficking in humans and fraud, the Prosecutor General's Office said.

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In the summer of 1998, Schneider traveled to Moscow, Russia where he told two ballet instructors at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography that he was willing to provide “assistance” to students attending the academy. The instructors identified a 12-year old student whose family could no longer afford to pay his board. Schneider convinced the boy’s parents to allow him to live with Schneider in an apartment a few blocks from the school. From the fall of 1998 until 2004, Schneider engaged in a sexual relationship with the victim, bringing him to Philadelphia for a summer program in 2001, then returning to Moscow with the victim in August 2001 to continue the sexual relationship. Schneider paid for private ballet lessons at the apartment, and provided the victim with food and clothing. But he told the youngster to keep their relationship a secret. They had oral sex approximately three times a week and later anal sex about four times a week when he was 14 and 15 years old. The victim was exploited sexually (as a domestic sex servant), with the provision of room and board as a means of coercion.

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Forced Criminality2009

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