MINSK -- A Moscow court has found three Russians guilty of human trafficking, illegal incarceration, and the organization of a prostitution ring in Moscow, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports.
The Meshchansky District Court in Moscow said that from 2003 to 2005 Viktor Sheremet, Kirill Golovin, and Artem Chukardin organized a chain of brothels in central Moscow where young women from Belarus were forced to work as prostitutes.
They were also found to have run an organized criminal group that operated in Moscow and the Belarusian city of Vitebsk.
The leader of the group, Sheremet, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while Golovin and Chukardin were given 11 and 10 years, respectively.