A 65-year-old Portuguese man has been arrested in Venezuela, accused of “providing documentation to women so that they could get out of the troubled country on the pretext of erroneous offers of work”.
According to Venezuelan authorities, the women would all have been trafficked for the purposes of prostitution.
Joaquim Eugénio da Costa was arrested in the possession of “various passports and personal documents of Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese women”.
Since Venezuela descended into a situation described as dictatorship, the country has been further hit by swingeing US sanctions.
For the time being, the international community is ‘keeping schtum’, perhaps in response to President Trump’s recent comments refusing to rule out a “possible military option, if necessary”.
