Defendants allegedly brought women from Russia and Ukraine to work in Tel Aviv brothels.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUKProstitute and police 390(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
The Tel Aviv District Attorney filed an indictment in the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday, charging three men and one woman with trafficking women from Russia and Ukraine to work as prostitutes in Israel.According to the indictment, Bat Yam resident Oleg “Alex” Zversky, 36; 40-year-old Vyacheslav “Slavik” Magaziner, from Rishon Lezion and 36-year-old Eilat resident Ya’acov Malka, employed women from Ukraine and Russia, as well as Israeli citizens, in various brothels in Tel Aviv.The three men convinced young Ukrainian and Russian women to come to Israel where the fourth defendant, 29-year-old Olga Fisher from Bat Yam, met them at the airport and took them to Zversky, the indictment said.The indictment alleges that Fisher knew Zversky for two years before he asked her to help him bring women to Israel to work as prostitutes.Last year, Fisher met four or five women, the indictment said, who had come to Israel from Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia and Krasnodar in Ukraine.On one occasion last November, Fisher is alleged to have met one of the women at the airport, after her arrival with a friend from Ukraine.The indictment says that a Ukrainian woman, the first complainant in the case, had become acquainted with Zversky after meeting a woman who knew him in Odessa. The woman then talked to Zversky on the Skype internet chat program, and then via SMS messages, where he told her he would pay for her flight to Israel and her living expenses in Tel Aviv, if she agreed to work as a prostitute.Zversky allegedly told the complainant she would receive a wage of NIS 600 for each hour of sexual services she provided, out of which she would have to repay her expenses.Once in Israel, Zversky demanded the complainant and her friend begin work immediately, but she said she was tired, the indictment said.Zversky allegedly provided the two women with SIM cards, so that he could contact them whenever he wished.
The next day, Zversky told the complainant that a driver named Lyosha would take her to meet “clients,” the indictment said.Allegedly, Lyosha took the complainant to around eight or nine “clients” every day, and when she returned to the apartment she was living in, Zversky would ask her to have sex with him too, and spend the night with him, the indictment alleges.However, the complainant refused, saying she had come to Israel to work because of her difficult financial situation, and only worked as a prostitute for that reason.Zversky told her that she had better do everything he asked, or she would be in trouble, the indictment said.Allegedly, on one occasion, Zversky “fined” the complainant by docking her wages and became angry with her after she fled from a liaison with a “client” who frightened her.The other two defendants, Magaziner and Malka, allegedly ran several brothels in Tel Aviv, where they employed Israeli women as well as foreign women.The two men published photos of the women on the internet and also in various print publications including Seximo and Banana, the indictment said, and in January another of the complainants in the case contacted them over the internet from Ukraine, looking for work.That complainant finally came to Israel in February, and Magaziner allegedly took her to a hotel in Tel Aviv, where he told her that his partner, Malka, would send her clients.At some point, the indictment said, Magaziner took 500 euros the woman brought from Ukraine and $2,400 she had earned from prostitution, saying the money would be better off with him. Magaziner refused to return the money, the indictment said.Magaziner also refused to allow the complainant rest breaks even when she felt unwell, the indictment alleges.Alongside the indictment, the district attorney also filed a request that the defendants be remanded in custody for the duration of the legal proceedings.
