Eight men were indicted on Sunday on allegations that they operated a human trafficking network.

The main suspected in the case, Rami Saban, 35, of Megadim, was accused of committing 23 different felonies. He was charged with conspiracy to commit a crime, maintaining a real estate property to operate a whorehouse, pimping, forcing a person to leave their country of residence in order to work as a prostitute, managing a brothel, assault, forgery, money laundering and harassment of witnesses.

Seven other men were indicted in the case, including Shmuel Malka, 33, of Megadim, David Moraidi, 38 from Tel Aviv and his brother Yaacov, 40 from Holon.

According to allegations, between the years 1999 and 2008, the men forced women to leave their homes in order to work as prostitutes, smuggled them across continents and states, ran whorehouses and employed the women as whores in Israel.

According to one of the charges, in January 2000 Saban met a Russian woman called Angela and conspired with her to traffic women in order to employ them as prostitutes in Israel. She was instructed by Saban to find women interested in coming to Israel. Angela published an ad in a local paper and consequently met a local woman who agreed to come to Israel to work as a dancer or as a prostitute. She also agreed to work without pay for the first three months. Later the woman sent a photograph of herself in a swimsuit to Israel and agreed to a salary of $1,000 a month for her work in Israel. She was smuggled into the country with the assistance of Beduins from the Sinai Peninsula.

The detainees reportedly managed several brothels using the same method. Their prostitutes charged each client NIS 100-400 and allegedly gave their services to dozens of clients a day.

The defendants collected wages according to their investments in each of the brothels. Saban made NIS 1.1 million this way, while David Moraidi collected some NIS 2.6 million. Another defendant, Reuven Hodiantov, from Rishon Lezion, also made NIS 2.6 million.