STA, 20 July - The Koper District Court was no longer allowed to extend the provisional securement of the asset recovery claim in the prostitution and sex trafficking case known as Marina. Four main suspects have had their assets unfrozen on Saturday and can now dispose freely of them again, the newspaper Večer has reported.
Three years after the indictment was filed, criminal proceedings against Sergej Racman, Dejan Šurbek, and Vesna Trnovec are still ongoing, so the court was forced to unfreeze their personal and business assets, Večer reported on Tuesday.
They are believed to have made at least EUR 21 million in illegal gains while allegedly operating a prostitution ring at the Marina Sauna Club near Nova Gorica, and abusing some 400 women, mostly from Romania, Ukraine, Albania and the former Yugoslavia, between 2014 and 2020, who have had to serve some 150,000 male guests, says the prosecution.
According to the newspaper, provisional securement of a asset recovery claim is ordered by the court when there is reason to believe a suspect will use illegally acquired assets to resume criminal activity or that they will hide, steal, destroy or otherwise use said assets to impede criminal proceedings and asset recovery once court proceedings are completed.
The Koper District Court has also received EUR 800,000 in bail since September 2021 which was paid to release the prime suspect, businessman Sergej Racman, from custody.
All four defendants maintain the Marina was an erotic club providing an intimate atmosphere, but no one was forced into prostitution.
Prostitution was decriminalised in Slovenia 2003, but only for those providing the services voluntarily, without procurement and coercion.
