Spain smashes 'Russian sex ring'

Spanish police say they have smashed a major Russian prostitution ring, arresting 76 people and detaining 400 women suspected of illegal residence.

The gangs were based in Lerida and Gerona in the north-east of the country and Almeria and Granada in the south, police said.

Russian-Spanish couples - married or cohabiting - were involved in the sex trafficking, police said.

Illegal remittances to Russia may have totalled more than 2m euros (£1.6m).

The police operation was launched in November 2006.

The prostitutes lived in cramped apartments, police said. The payments for each sex trafficking victim were reportedly made in transfers totalling less than 3,000 euros each, to avoid detection by the fiscal authorities.