24 July 2023 , 18:04
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A couple have been arrested and charged with human trafficking in connection with the exploitation of three women after forcing them into prostitution allowing the couple to cash in at least £300k.
Between 2019 and 2021, Joselito Martinez and Tanya Wurster, allegedly trafficked women in various locations throughout Central Florida,the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation's said.
The couple allegedly bonded the women out of jail and provided them with housing, only to force them into engaging in "commercial sex acts with customers." Over the course of two years, this operation reportedly allowed the pair to accumulate more than $300,000 from the victims.
According to investigators, Martinez exerted control over the victims by using narcotics, threats of violence, and even resorting to humiliating acts, such as shaving the victims' heads.
The victims were reportedly coerced into engaging in "commercial sex acts with customers," (Getty Images)Disturbingly, deputies discovered that Martinez forcibly branded two of the women by making them receive tattoos to mark them as his property.
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The couple's own child was present in the home where these alleged prostitution activities took place, investigators added. Police say there may be additional victims, given Martinez and Wurster's apparent tendency to seek out new victims.
Following their arrest, Joselito Martinez and Tanya Wurster were booked into the Orange County Jail to face charges related to human trafficking and other heinous crimes.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI).
It comes as, elsewhere in Florida, police have made multiple grim discoveries of human remains stuffed into suitcases across Florida and Texas over a two-day period.
Early Thursday morning, residents of Bexar County, Texas, were feeding their animals when they happened upon a duffel bag and made the shocking discovery of human body parts.
They immediately called the sheriff's office, and deputies arrived on the scene shortly after.
There had been no attempt to hide the body outside of shoving it into the bag, and it appeared that someone had been trying to burn something on the property - though it is not uncommon for residents to burn trash in the area, Sheriff Javier Salazar said during a press conference.
"The first inclination, of course, is to assume that it's a homicide scene," he said. "At this point, all we really know is that we've got partial human remains out here."
The identify of the victim is unclear - neither the gender nor the identity have been released. It is also uncertain how long the person had been deceased or on the property nor what their cause of death was.