From Venezuela, Maria travelled halfway around the world in search of a better life. Instead, the mother of two was trapped in Albanian detention for months after being lured into illegal sex work.

Maria, 38, is among a growing number of women drawn by international criminal networks into the Balkan nation from impoverished countries on the promise of lucrative sex work and a potential gateway to Europe.

She is just one victim of a criminal web that spans continents.

Earlier this week, international police busted a "highly organised" network that exploited over 50 women similar to Maria, whose name AFP has changed to protect her.

According to Europol, police arrested 17 alleged traffickers on Wednesday, who had brought women from Latin America to Albania and Croatia.

The women were either trapped in illegal sex work in Albania or exploited in other European countries.

"They promised me paradise but I found hell," Maria told AFP, in a Tirana apartment rented by an association that helps victims of human trafficking.

Albania's economic and social collapse in the 1990s, following decades of isolation under a communist dictatorship, allowed the emergence of one of the most notorious mafias in the world, according to organised crime expert Fabrice Rizzoli.

Albanian clans, specialising in human trafficking and heroin smuggling, capitalised on an alliance with the Calabrian mafia "to spread prostitutes on the streets of Milan and its region", he said.

Since branching into cocaine supply in the 2000s, the Albanian mafia has been well established in Latin America, he said.

But as tourism booms, Albania, once a country of origin for sex trafficking, has now become a destination country for various criminal groups that bring women to the Balkan country, where prostitution is illegal.

Empowered by the global reach of cybercrime, criminal networks are using Albania as a transit point to exploit women from other........

© International Business Times