THESSALONIKI – After a 24-year-old woman said she was gang raped at a New Year’s Eve party at a hotel in Greece’s second-largest city, First Instance Prosecutor Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos ordered a probe into allegations that a sex trafficking ring was behind it and operating there to lure other women.

A criminal lawyer, Nikos Dialynas, made the accusations about women being recruited and trafficked to service men at parties, after Georgia Bika – who identified herself – said three men at a private party sexually assaulted her.

Dialynas submitted evidence that the ring is comprised of three groups centred around Thessaloniki who allegedly groom young women, including schoolgirls, and introduce their victims to drugs and parties in order to push them into prostitution.

The state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA said that the evidence dossier also implicates police officers but it wasn’t said what their role was or if they were offering protection for rich men at private parties.