After the New Year, the logical next step for the investigation was, inescapably,
to go through with a "purchase".
No professional reporter would want to cross legal bounds or provide funds directly
to criminals participating in the trade. But to get to the heart of the trafficking story,
and provide images that could drive home the enormity of it all, we would have to return
to Matasari.
For this purpose, the editor of Evenimentul Zilei handed us the equivalent of 600 dollars.
We consented with mixed professional and personal feelings. But we felt the public interest,
as well as that of the girl herself, were overriding. The girl, it was agreed, would be
immediately released into the care of the NGO Reaching Out, which tends to prostitutes
and sex slaves.
The final part of the plan was laid in place when Iana Matei, the director of the organization,
confirmed that she was ready to take in any girl we were able to rescue.
The NGO, which had started work in 1998, had so far taken in 74 victims of trafficking.
Each spent about a year in a shelter, attending courses and gaining qualifications. The
programme has been a success story, as only five girls have since returned to prostitution.
One is now a psychology student at university.
A few days later we found ourselves back in Matasari, Dwarf's turf. This time, though, we
hired two bodyguards to protect us.
I knocked on the door but nobody answered. Dwarf was not at home. But we located him not
far away, on the street corner together with other pimps and prostitutes.
"Hi Dwarf! How are you? Get in the car!" I told him. With a superior smile on his face,
Dwarf hopped in. The rest of the guys stared enviously, as Dwarf was driven away. The
foreigner, Dwarf and I sat in the back.
"Hey man I waited for you two weeks ago. You said you'd come and you didn't? What happened?
I lost money that night," the trafficker said, with a serious expression.
I cut in, "I apologise, something unexpected. . . . Anyway the past is the past. Let's
get back to business. Do you still have the girl?"
"No man, I don't. I sold her," he said. "And yesterday evening I sold another one. But
what is this. Who is the driver? Is he a cop? I can sense he's a cop. What's wrong with
you man? I liked you the last time. You came to me by yourself, no problem.
But now? What's this?"
Dwarf was nervous. In a sense, he was right. The driver was an ex-policeman in the
special action unit who'd left his job for a better salary in the private sector. I
assured Dwarf that everything was all right and he had nothing to fear. Finally, he relented.
"It's God's will man. I put myself in your hands. I trust you because you seem all right.
But I don't have a girl for sale tonight. Maybe you can come some other time. Just give me
your phone number and I'll call you up when I have something," he said.
I insisted that the foreigner had the money on him and wanted to buy a girl that same
night. Convinced, Dwarf agreed to take us to a few places where girls might be on sale.
"We'll start first with the place where I sold a girl the other night. Maybe I can get
her back," he said. " You must come with me alone, without the driver or the foreigner,
and you don't say anything. You'll pay me 400 US dollars for the girl and you don't care
how much I pay myself for her. Agreed?"
I accepted and we set off. Unfortunately, these traffickers had sold her, too. But they
told us who had bought her and we drove to another house, still in the
Matasari neighbourhood.
We entered a house and an almost surreal scene presented itself. Dwarf introduced me
to Bila, a drug dealer also in the human trafficking business. Bila was lying on a sofa
with a needle in his left arm. He was so high he could hardly shake hands. He said he
didn't know about the girl we were looking for.
"See man. I don't do drugs. Drugs make you look stupid. Isn't it better to just drink
a good vodka and get drunk like hell?" Dwarf asked, nodding his head with disapproval.
The trail had gone dead, so I asked Dwarf if he knew other traffickers who might have
girls that night. After a moment of hesitation, he said we'd better go to the main
railway station area. We stopped our car very often in this new area and Dwarf, who
seemed to know everyone on the street, finally came up with a lead.
"We'll go to Buric," he announced triumphantly. "He has a girl on sale."
