Belfast: Three charged with trafficking and prostitution

Two men and a woman have appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court charged with offences including human trafficking and prostitution.

They were charged after a police investigation which began last June.

The PSNI said they had identified six women as victims of human trafficking.

The investigation began after a woman told police she was enticed to Northern Ireland from Romania with the promise of a job at an Amazon warehouse, the court heard.

She alleged that one of the accused, Petru Balogh, 26, with an address at Hugh Street in Belfast paid for her flight, and that Mr Balogh and Flortina Ciurar, 35, of the same address, picked her up from the airport.

But police said when she arrived in the country, she was told there was no such job and she would instead use sex work to make money.

She said Mr Balogh and Ms Ciurar told her she could earn a lot of money, she could pay off the cost of her flight and that they would help her with adverts and setting up clients.

Mr Balogh, Ms Ciurar, and 29-year-old Ioan Mihai of Coombe Hill Park in Belfast, are also accused of acquiring criminal property - cash - and converting it.

The woman said she was brought to an address at Hugh Street.

A detective constable told the court that the bedroom she was to sleep in was also the bedroom she was to work in.

She claimed it had many boxes of condoms and baby wipes in it, the court heard.

'High financial returns'

The court was told that police had found other sex workers at that address and two had the same contact number, which was registered to Ms Ciurar.

Mr Balogh also paid their travel to Northern Ireland, it was claimed, and that large amounts of money had passed through bank accounts belonging to Mr Balogh and Ms Ciurar.

The police officer said that during financial investigations they uncovered that Mr Balogh had transferred cash to Ioan Mihai on same date that Mr Mihai took out a tenancy at an address in Newtownabbey, where a brothel was located soon after.

Neither Mr Balogh or Ms Ciurar applied for bail.

But Mr Mihai's solicitor said the case against his client was "very speculative" and questioned the business relationship between Mr Mihai and a woman that the PSNI describe as a victim.

The solicitor said she did not see herself as a victim or having been coerced and that she had not made a statement against Mr Mihai.

She also claimed that she was working as a prostitute before she came to know Mr Mihai.

His bail application was denied by District Judge John Meehan, who said that there was risk of of flight and of reoffending.

The judge said he suspected that "that this is a ring of high financial returns".

All three have been remanded in custody to appear again on Tuesday.