Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1509678
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 OCTOBER 2023 NEWS The prostitution ring in the CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The prostitution racket was al- legedly being masterminded by Florian Răzvan Tănase, a 33-year- old Romanian man. Tănase is be- lieved to have come to Malta in 2015 and has been operating this prostitution ring since. Tănase was already convicted for pimping in Bucharest and served nearly two years in prison. The file on the case showed that he and a previous girlfriend told a woman that she would work in an erotic massage parlour but was instead pimped to 15 men. The girlfriend would handle bookings while Tănase was the mastermind of the whole opera- tion. A year after he was released from prison, he made his way to Malta. For the Maltese operation, Tănase used the 'lover boy' meth- od to lure women into coming to Malta and work as escorts, later prostitutes. Half of the women's earnings would be taken by pimps on the ground, who then passed on half of the money to Tănase. Several buildings around Malta, although largely centred around St Julian's, were being used for prostitution. The women would be moved from one place to an- other on a regular basis. After Rivas's murder last Decem- ber, Maltese police found a piece of paper with several mobile num- bers scribbled down. Some of the numbers were labelled according to women's features – "brunette", "blonde", "red head". Reporters found that these numbers can be traced back to several escort web- sites that were used to operate the prostitution ring. People alleged to police that Tănase's girlfriend, Andreea Elena Panait, was in charge of these mo- bile numbers and would manage clients and appointments for the women. Meanwhile his mother, Elena Carmen Tănase, would fly between Malta and Romania and carry cash in and out of the coun- try. Testifying in court last Decem- ber, inspector Kurt Zahra con- firmed that the clients would make bookings through family in Romania. "Among these peo- ple is Răzvan's mum and his girl- friend Andreea. Clients would make contact with them, confirm the booking, and when the client meets the woman in Malta, they would send a WhatsApp message to confirm that the client actually showed up." Through this system, Tănase would keep tabs on how many clients the girls were meeting, and how much money they had to receive. The operation was cash-based, with people tasked by Tănase to go to the apartment and pick up the money from the wom- en once a week. From nightclub hostess to pros- titute Maria*, a woman who worked in the prostitution racket, spoke to the journalists in this investigation and shed light on how the racket operated. Maria boarded a plane to Malta in summer 2022 believing that she was going to work as a hostess in nightclubs. She arrived with other women who were coming to Mal- ta with similar intentions. However, after they were taken to a flat in San Ġwann, it quick- ly became apparent to them that they were going to do more than just 'escorting'. Maria said there were around 30 mobile phones on the table, with two SIM cards in each phone. These were the phones that would be used to manage clients and schedule appointments. She said several websites were used to promote the women and offer sexual services. Pictures of the women were posted to these websites, and each was assigned a phone number. Maria said she and the other women were moved around a lot as neighbours would become suspicious. "We were noisy," Ma- ria said. "Maybe we were arguing with a customer, or perhaps we didn't want to do what the cus- tomer wanted." According to Maria, the women would be put in a room and told to undress and wait for the client to come in. Clients would pay be- tween €80 to €100 for each ses- sion, but the money wasn't going to the women in full. "They took money for rent, for food, for what we needed, lingerie, cleaning, anything related. By the end, we were left with 20% of all the money." In rare cases, the women would go to a client's house directly. Maria recalled how one woman, from Peru, was 'allowed' to do an outcall but was beaten up by the client. "He punched her in the face, her face was swollen, all scratched," Maria said. "He started doing things to her in the elevator, and the woman said 'What are you do- ing? Wait!'. He got out of the ele- vator, ran and went up the stairs, and when she got out she heard the door close." Any women who wanted to leave the racket would be threatened by the group leader or his lackeys. They would threaten to send their nude photos to their family back home. In extreme situations, the women would be threatened with their lives. "They were the ones speaking with the clients, and so they knew everything. They would threat- en us. 'We are going to kill you. There's no way you're leaving this place'," Maria said. 139, Boutique Apartments Oftentimes, the men made use of short-lets on accommodation websites to house the women and offer the prostitution services. MaltaToday confirmed that one of the flats that was used for these services is Boutique Apartments, a rental unit located a few metres away from Big G's. A company called G&R Bou- tique Apartments operates from these flats along Triq San Ġorġ in Paceville. This company is owned by two shareholders: an Italian na- tional and Mayasiar Ltd. Mayasiar was a Maltese com- pany registered in Fgura in 2016, with a Romanian woman appoint- ed as director and shareholder. It has since been dissolved due to inactivity. A parallel company was set up under a similar name in Romania in 2017, owned by her Sicilian partner, Rosario Militello. A confidential Europol intelli- gence report obtained by report- ers indicates that Militello was in communication with the criminal group led by the 'Maksar' broth- ers, Robert and Adrian Agius. Robert Agius, along with associate Jamie Vella, has been charged with supplying the bomb that killed journalist Daphne Caruana Gali- zia, while Adrian Agius is charged with masterminding the murder of lawyer Carmel Chircop. It was revealed as part of the Daphne Project that Militello is connected to the Santapaola clan in Catania. In 2014 he was arrest- ed for trafficking around 3kg of cannabis, and a year later he was arrested as part of an arms traf- ficking investigation in Sicily. He was also arrested in 2015 af- ter French and Italian police or- ganised a controlled delivery of weapons in Malta. Militello and another Italian man appeared at the delivery address and were ar- rested. However, Militello claimed to not be aware of the package's con- tent and was released. The people behind the prostitu- tion ring Tănase had two other hench- men making sure the girls would stay in line with what was wanted of them. These were Razvan Ilies- cu and Liviu Todica. Iliescu was a loyal confidante to Tănase, according to Maria. "Iliescu said he knows [Tănase] has money hidden underground somewhere. He knows how the websites were set up, where he has the money, and where they keep their fancy cars." Meanwhile, Liviu Todica used to sell drugs with Iliescu in Romania. He was charged in a Romanian court in 2017 with two others for drug trafficking after trying to sell 1,001 MDMA tablets. They tried selling the pills to an undercover investigator. Meanwhile, Tănase's brother, Bogdan Tănase, likes to flaunt his wealth on social media and shares his high-flying lifestyle on Face- book and Tiktok. Bogdan Tănase is no stranger to Malta. Some of his videos on Tiktok show him walking down Santa Rita steps in Paceville, driv- ing along the Coast Road, and on a boat trip around the island shores. Apart from his adventures in Malta, his posts show him driv- ing around in luxury vehicles. One Tiktok video from June 2022 shows him driving in a white Lamborghini Huracan 724, worth around €200,000. The Tănase family hails from the Ferentari district in Bucharest. This district has a notorious repu- tation, known for poverty, organ- ised crime, and drug addicts. Regardless, several members of the Tănase family own a portfo- lio of properties worth almost a million euro. These properties in- Ilie Constantin (left) and Ionut Iulian Tanase (right) are two of the three men being accused of murdering Joseff Rivas and living off the profits of this prostitution racket