1999 to 2007, Avi Yanai and his accomplices sold hundreds of women for prostitution to Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.

An Israeli citizen was sentenced yesterday to 18 years in prison by the Moscow military court, for organizing a vast network of sex trafficking. According to the court, from 1999 to 2007, when most of the network's agents were arrested, Avi Yanai and his accomplices sold hundreds of women for prostitution to Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. The minimal official estimate stands at 129 women, but some of the states still investigating the network put the number at several hundred. The women were lured from Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan.

Aside from Yanai, 83 people were arrested across Europe, 14 of them in Russia. The network is suspected to have produced tens of millions of dollars in profits for its operators, and some of the women trafficked may have been murdered by the Albanian mafia.

 

Five teenage boys have been arrested in connection with the scrapyard fire that closed the M1 in both directions for several days.

A blaze under an elevated section of the motorway in Mill Hill, north London, saw lanes closed between junctions 1 and 4, on 15 April.

The fire caused widespread disruption, with a seven-mile stretch affected.

The five boys arrested are aged between 14 and 17, the Metropolitan Police said.

They were arrested in a series of raids across Barnet and Harrow, in north London, on Wednesday morning.

They are being held in connection with the M1 fire and two other blazes in Moat Mount Open Space, Mill Hill.

The other two fires took place between 14 and 15 April and between 15 and 16 April.

Det Ch Insp Mark Roycroft said: "Although we are pursuing a number of active leads into these fires we would still ask that anyone who has any information about these crimes contact Barnet police.

"Your information could be invaluable to the investigation and bringing those responsible to justice."

London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said the blaze beneath the M1 appeared to have been started deliberately.