One of the three most-wanted fugitives in Spain has been captured in the German port city of Hamburg, authorities reported on Friday.
The woman, known as 'La Diabla,' or 'the she-devil,' is the suspected head of a human-trafficking ring operating mainly in Spain, Spanish police said in a statement.
She was arrested on Wednesday evening by plainclothes investigators in a Hamburg apartment, the statement added.
In addition to human-trafficking, Spanish authorities accuse Leudis Isaac Corro Camacho, who is transgendered, of money-laundering and forming a criminal organization.
She is said to have been involved in the sexual exploitation of multiple women and transgender people in different parts of Spain, including flats in the cities of Barcelona and Oviedo, as well as a hostess club in Caspe (Zaragoza), from where she managed to flee at the last moment of a police intervention.
'La Diabla' found the victims in their country of origin, Venezuela, where they lived in poverty, with the promise of a legal job in Spain. But then she forced them to undergo breast augmentation surgeries and liposuctions to later send them to Barcelona, Madrid and Germany where they were locked up in flats and sexually exploited to pay an alleged debt of 12,000 euros for the expenses incurred.
'Venezuelan man'
Until the arrest, she was included in the Europe's Most Wanted 2021, a campaign developed by Europol listing the identities and profiles of the most wanted fugitives in Europe.
Hamburg police on Friday reported the arrest of a 34-year-old Venezuelan man in the Hohenfelde district, saying he would now be handed over to Spanish authorities.
The Hamburg police did not provide further information on the person's identity.
