Woman offered job abroad ‘sold in Portugal for prostitution’, FIR lodged

After she contacted the phone number on the Instagram page over WhatsApp, she was added to a WhatsApp group named “Lets Migrate Community 3” on January 24, 2026. She then went to We Migrate’s office with her husband and mother-in-law on February 14, the FIR stated.

The FIR stated some staffers at the office claimed the company was registered with the Ministry of External Affairs.

They showed her various documents like a “licence”, “student temporary resident card (TRC)” and “work permit”. They made her speak over the phone with three persons, who claimed to be working in Portugal, Spain and Netherland on a month salary of Rs 1.5 lakh.

The FIR stated that the company offered her jobs such as that of a worker, supermarket cashier and accountant, in different countries on payment of Rs 11 lakh, of which Rs 3 lakh was meant for air tickets, visa and insurance. They said she could call her husband wherever she was after three months on a “dependent visa”, the FIR stated.

The woman paid Rs 1 lakh to a staffer through a UPI transaction and over the next few days, she paid Rs 7 lakhs more, police said.

As per the FIR, the woman submitted documents for her visa at VSF Global in Hyderabad on March 5 and later received a “multiple entry visa” for France on March 14, by courier. On March 17, she was asked to book an air ticket from Mumbai to Spain, the FIR stated.

On May 21, she left for Spain, where a man picked her up and next the day took her to Portugal, where she was made to stay at a Punjabi man’s house. The woman alleged two persons snatched her passport here and returned it after she paid them 400 Euros.

She was then taken to Odemira in Portugal, for “college admission and student TRC” and a cashier job at a supermarket. She was kept at a house with two more women hailing from Rajasthan and Haryana.

Instead of getting a supermarket job, she was allegedly sold to a beer shop in Odemira and was asked to meet people for prostitution as per the instructions of her master, the FIR stated.

It further stated that the woman called her husband over the phone, saying they had been cheated. She managed to leave Odemira and reach Madrid in Spain by bus on May 29. She then went to Doha, and from there, to Delhi by flight on May 31, police said.

Her husband received her in Delhi and returned to Nagpur. However, she continued to receive emails seeking her passport and demanding her for Rs 3 lakh more for another job in a foreign country.

The woman came to Pune with her husband and filed a complaint with the city police. Based on her complaint, an FIR was lodged against eight persons — four from Pune and four based in Portugal — under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 127(6) (wrongful confinement),143(2) (trafficking of person), 3(5), 308(5) (extortion), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 318(4) (cheating), 351(3) (criminal intimidation),61(2) (criminal conspiracy).

The investigation in the case was handed over to the crime branch. Senior police inspector Santosh Sonawane of the crime branch said, “We have launched a probe into this case. As per the complaint, offence has taken place in India and abroad. Verification of the details mentioned in the complaint is being done and further action will be taken.”