The men entered the hall wearing identical dark clothes that covered most of their faces.

The girls were placed in a specific order and were forbidden to speak or cover their faces with their hands.

For a long time, the men read aloud texts in a language that the victims did not understand.

The participants themselves later said that they saw in these texts the key to higher knowledge.

Although experts who analyzed the seized books described them as a mixture of religious phrases and folk spells.

After the reading, the second phase began, which was essentially systematic sexual violence.

Each girl was subjected to successive actions by all the men present.

They themselves described it as transferring energy from the vessels to the brotherhood.

The victims used different words in their testimonies.

Violence, humiliation, complete helplessness.

The master actively participated in these actions and controlled the order, punishing men who tried to evade or violated the rules he had established.

The consequences of this regime were not long in coming.

After a few months, some of the girls began to show signs of pregnancy.

No preventive measures were taken deliberately.

In the organizers’s logic, pregnancy was a natural result of the rituals and further confirmation of their power.

An elderly woman with experience as a nurse in a maternity ward was invited to assist with the births.

She was introduced into the scheme as a sacred assistant, essentially the only person with basic medical skills who regularly descended into the underground complex.

This woman later became one of the key witnesses.

She was not part of the circle of 15 men and did not share their beliefs, but she needed money and agreed to the job without fully understanding the scale of what was happening.

At first, she was told that the women downstairs had violated social norms and were undergoing a special re-education program.

Only when she saw the real condition of the girls did she realized that she was dealing with victims of human trafficking and violence.

According to her, at least seven births took place in the underground complex over 2 years.

In each case, she was called in advance when the girls went into labor.

There were minimal medicines, several types of painkillers, antiseptics, and a basic set of instruments.

There was no full access to equipment and specialists because the organizers were afraid of attracting attention.

In some cases, the births went without serious complications.

But within minutes of the baby’s birth, the mothers were deprived of the opportunity to see their child.

The newborns were taken away by older male participants and carried to another part of the complex.

And from there, as the investigation showed, they were transferred to people who had agreed in advance to pay for adoption.

Two episodes ended in the death of the women in labor.

In one case, heavy bleeding began, which the midwife was unable to stop without access to full resuscitation equipment.

She asked for an ambulance to be called but was refused on the grounds that no one should know about the existence of the complex.

In the second case, the birth was prolonged and the woman developed exhaustion and infection.

Help also arrived too late.

After the women’s deaths, their bodies were taken upstairs at night, loaded into a car, and taken outside the compound.

there.

According to the guards who participated, they were buried in a remote part of the desert without identification marks.

With each new episode of participation in childbirth, the midwife’s inner tension increased.

She saw how the girls who had lost their children fell into a severe psychological state, refused to eat, and sat motionless for hours.

She tried to talk to them, but the staff strictly limited the time she could spend in their rooms.

At some point it became clear to her that the situation would not change for the better and the only way to stop what was happening was to bring the information out into the open.

This decision matured gradually against the backdrop of fear for her own safety and the well-being of her family who lived in another city and could come under pressure if her involvement was revealed.

The key moment came during another ritual after which one of the girls was brought to an improvised medical room in serious condition.

She showed signs of serious injury and needed surgical intervention but the organizers again refused to call an ambulance.

The midwife tried to help her on her own but realized that she did not have enough resources.

The girl survived but this incident was the last straw for her.

In the following weeks, she began to look for loopholes in the villa’s security system.

She noted when the guards changed shifts, which employees were less attentive, and at what times she could go upstairs without being accompanied by one of the members of the circle.

Unlike the other girls, she was not kept downstairs all the time.

She lived in a separate room on one of the upper floors and came down when called.

This gave her more opportunities, but also made her more noticeable.

Any attempt to escape could result in immediate detention and disappearance.

Nevertheless, one morning when one of the guards was distracted by a phone call, she seized the moment, left the main area, and walked to the nearest road where she flagged down a passing car.

The driver, as he later told investigators, agreed to take her to the city because she looked frightened and kept saying she needed to go to the police.

At the police station, she was initially met with disbelief.

Her story about the basement, 12 locked up girls, rituals, and a group of influential men seemed too incredible to the officer on duty.

Specific details changed the situation.

She described the layout of the villa, the location of the entrances, security cameras, the number of rooms downstairs, and the places where documents and money were kept.

These details were recorded, a diagram was drawn up, and the information was passed on to an officer dealing with human trafficking cases.

He already had experience of initially implausible stories about private prisons and illegal brothel being confirmed upon investigation.

After internal discussions, it was decided to conduct a covert investigation.

First, satellite images were used to verify the location of the villa and the surrounding infrastructure.

Then, through unobtrusive surveillance at the entrance, it was confirmed that the property was indeed in active use with expensive cars regularly entering and leaving the premises and a level of security above average for a private home.

An additional argument was information about the financial transactions of several alleged participants.

Large regular transfers with no clear purpose, coinciding with periods when, according to the midwife, special rituals were performed and children were born.

This was enough to initiate preparations for a military operation.

The decision to storm the complex was made at a level where not only the risks to the victims were taken into account, but also the possible political consequences given the status of many of the suspects.

As a result, the priority was declared to be the rescue of people in the underground complex and the prevention of possible destruction of evidence if the information somehow leaked to the owners of the villa.

The operation was planned in strict secrecy involving a limited circle of employees of a special unit specializing in the release of hostages.

The operation was planned for early morning on a weekday when the likelihood of outsiders being on the premises was lower and according to surveillance, most of the group members were at home.

The main task was to simultaneously block all exits, neutralize the security guards, and as quickly as possible establish control over the underground level where the victims might be located.

The assault team arrived at the villa in unmarked SUVs.

At the same time, the external power supply to the facility was cut off to disable some of the surveillance systems, but the autonomous lighting inside the underground complex remained intact thanks to backup power sources.

At the main entrance, security guards attempted to close the gate, but the team acted quickly.

They blocked the gate with armored vehicles and detained the guards, preventing anyone from using phones or radios.

Inside the house, several people attempted to reach the offices where the documents and safes were located, but they were intercepted on the stairs.

The key moment was gaining access to the underground level.

According to the diagram provided by the midwife, it was accessed via an elevator and a metal door in the utility room.

The elevator was blocked on the first floor so that no one could go up or down without permission.

The main entrance to the basement was opened with hydraulic tools.

The first to descend were fighters in full gear with ballistic shields.

They expected armed resistance, but in the corridor they were met only by silence and the bright light of fluorescent lamps.

A row of identical doors stretched along the corridor.

Sounds came from some of them, crying, screaming, banging.

Opening the first door, the security forces saw a young woman in a long white shirt sitting on the bed in obvious shock.

She covered her face with her hands and repeated words in a language the soldiers did not understand.

In the neighboring rooms were similar girls, some alone, some with obvious signs of physical exhaustion.

Two were in a state close to childbirth or had recently given birth, judging by medical signs.

There were no clothes in the rooms except for the shirts and underwear they had been given.

At the same time, another group went out to the hall where, as expected, another ritual was about to take place.

Inside, there were indeed several men in dark clothes and two girls who had just been brought out of the rooms.

The men did not have time to put up serious resistance.

Two tried to grab hidden knives, but were quickly disarmed.

The rest either froze or tried to shout something about a sacred place and a mistake.

A total of 15 men, later identified as the main members of the group, and 10 girls aged between 18 and just over 20, were detained in the basement.

The first priority after the capture was to provide medical assistance to the victims.

Ambulance crews and doctors were quickly brought to the villa.

All the girls were examined and injuries, signs of exhaustion and in several cases pregnancies at various stages and complications after recent child birth were recorded.

Several required urgent hospitalization.

They were taken to the nearest hospitals under guard to protect them from possible pressure or abduction.

At this new stage, the upper floors of the house were searched for documents, money, means of communication, and any evidence confirming the pattern of human trafficking and violence.

In the offices, they found safes with large sums of cash, a collection of jewelry, as well as neatly stacked passports and copies of the girl’s identification documents.

Next to them were sheets of paper with notes, country, age, hair color, date of arrival.

In another room, several laptops and external drives were found on which experts later found correspondence with intermediaries, financial calculations, and fragments of internal instructions for group members.

Several days passed between the raid and the start of a full-fledged investigation during which initial statements were recorded.

The main suspects initially took a hard line of denial.

They claimed that the girls were there of their own free will, that there was no violence, and that what was happening was part of a closed spiritual practice.

During the first interrogations, they referred to alleged verbal agreements and the preservation of the honor of families whose names they did not mention.

However, the seized documents, the midwife’s testimony, and the girl’s initial statements undermined this line of defense.

Medical reports played an important role.

The doctors who examined the girls recorded multiple old and fresh injuries characteristic of systematic sexual violence.

Gynecological examinations revealed numerous signs of childbirth without proper medical care, delayed healing of tears, and signs of infection.

Psychiatrists diagnosed most of the girls with post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression, and some with signs of dissociative episodes.

All of this information was included in the case file as evidence of the reality of what had happened in the underground complex.

A separate line of investigation was devoted to establishing the fate of the children born in the underground complex.

The midwife who gave the initial testimony described in detail each case of childbirth, the approximate duration of the pregnancies, the appearance of the babies, and which of the men were present when they were taken out of the room.

She also said that she had overheard fragments of conversations about prepared families and agreements in other cities and countries.

Financial documents and correspondence confirmed that during several periods coinciding with the dates of birth, large transfers from private individuals designated as family support or donations were made to the accounts of some of the suspects.

However, it was difficult to establish a direct link between specific children and specific families.

The documents were either missing or were issued to frontmen.

The process of interviewing the girls proved to be difficult and lengthy.

Some of them were unable to talk about their experiences at all.

In the first few weeks, they refused to engage, gave monoselabic answers, or froze when the underground complex was mentioned.

Psychologists and specialists in working with victims of human trafficking used methods that allowed them to gather information gradually and gently without ret-raumatizing the women.

Their stories coincided in detail, a similar recruitment scenario in their countries of origin, a journey into the unknown, deprivation of documents, their first encounter with the underground rooms, an explanation of the role of the sacred vessels.

a system of punishments and rewards and rituals involving a group of men.

The testimony of the midwife and the girls formed the basis of the indictment.

All 15 main participants were charged with kidnapping, unlawful deprivation of liberty, human trafficking, systematic sexual violence, causing grievous bodily harm, and creating and leading a criminal community.

Additionally, given the ritual nature of the actions, the indictment included a charge of engaging in prohibited magical practices and superstitions, which under local law was considered a serious crime.

For several people whom the investigation identified as the organizers and ideologues of the group, the punishment could be the maximum.

The trial was held in closed session.

Officially, this was explained by the need to protect the personal data of the victims and their families.

Only judges, prosecutors, lawyers, defendants, and a limited circle of law enforcement officials were present at the hearings.

The girls gave testimony behind a screen or via video link from a separate room so as not to see their former captors.

Their identities and countries of origin were not disclosed, and only their initials were used in the transcripts.

Despite attempts by lawyers to build a defense on the alleged voluntary participation of the women, the court took into account the inequality of the parties, isolation, threats, and the complete inability to freely leave the compound.

The difference in status also pointed to the role of voluntariness.

On the one hand, the economic elite with access to resources and on the other vulnerable young women from poor families.

on the other side of the world.

The judges specifically noted that the spiritual shell with which the defendants attempted to justify their actions did not negate the fact that serious crimes against the person had been committed.

As a result, all 15 men were found guilty on most of the charges.

The leaders of the group, including master, received the maximum sentence, while the others received long prison terms, in some cases with subsequent restrictions on any public activity.

The maximum sentences were carried out after appeals within the time limits established by law.

Official reports limited themselves to a brief statement about the commission of particularly serious crimes related to human trafficking, violence, and prohibited practices.

The fate of the girls after sentencing varied.

The state in which the complex was located decided to repatriate them to their countries of origin in consultation with the relevant embassies and consulates.

Before departure, they underwent treatment and psychological rehabilitation in specialized centers.

Some were provided with temporary housing and assistance in restoring their documents.

International human rights organizations included them in programs to support victims of human trafficking, helping with treatment, legal advice, and job searches.

However, even with formal assistance, the consequences of their experiences did not disappear.

Psychologists noted that many of the girls had long-term sleep problems, panic attacks, difficulty trusting people, especially men, and complex relationships with family issues given the loss of children born in the underground complex.

In several cases, relatives did not fully understand the scale of what had happened or preferred not to talk about it, which intensified the victim’s feelings of isolation.

Attempts to find the children who had been taken from the underground complex yielded limited results.

Investigators traced some of the money and found several families who had adopted babies through opaque schemes.

But the lack of official birth documents, fake certificates, and the use of front men made the task virtually impossible.

It was difficult to legally prove the connection between a specific child and a specific mother without genetic testing, which the new guardians did not agree to.

As a result, reports noted that several children were likely living in wealthy families in different countries, but their identities and locations were not disclosed.

Information about the existence of this group and the underground complex was not widely disseminated for a long time within the country.

The authorities limited themselves to brief statements and were reluctant to disclose details to the public.

The bulk of the information became known outside the region thanks to human rights activists and lawyers involved in the case who passed the materials on to colleagues in Europe.

These documents were later used as the basis for journalistic investigations and documentary projects, but their distribution in many Middle Eastern countries was blocked on formal grounds.

For experts involved in combating human trafficking, this case became an example of how a combination of financial resources, a closed elite, and pseudospiritual ideology can create a sustainable system of violence that is virtually invisible to outside observers.

For the surviving girls, this will remain a personal story that will rarely be heard publicly.

Most of them prefer not to recall the details and to build a new life as far as possible, away from the part of the world where they were once declared sacred vessels and deprived of their right to be simply human beings.

Three exclusive cream colored handbags and one men’s belt found during a search of a private villa turned out to be made not from calf skin, but from the skin of a 26-year-old Ukrainian citizen.

DNA testing confirmed that the material used to make these accessories belonged to Alina Sokova, who was officially listed as missing after an accident on the water.

Alina Sokalovva lived in a residential area of Kiev in an old pre-fabricated high-rise building where the elevator broke down every week and the hot water was turned off for the entire summer.

She lived with her mother and younger brother who had just entered college.

The family was desperately short of money.

Her mother worked as a nurse and earned a pittance which was barely enough to buy food.

Her father left the family 10 years ago and did not help in any way.

Alina tried to support her family on her own.

She was not a professional top model featured in magazines.

She earned extra money by modeling for cheap clothing cataloges, standing at promotional events in supermarkets, and sometimes appearing as an extra in music videos.

It was hard work for little pay.

Loans for household appliances and debts for the apartment were growing like a snowball.

Debt collectors began calling in the evenings, threatening legal action.

It was at this moment of despair that a woman wrote to Alina on Instagram.

The woman’s profile looked expensive and respectable.

Her name was Victoria and she introduced herself as a scout for the Dubai modeling agency Golden Sands.

The message said that Alina was the perfect type for working at private events in the Emirates.

Victoria suggested meeting to discuss the details.

The meeting took place not in an office, but in the lobby of an expensive hotel in the city center.

Victoria arrived with a folder of documents and a tablet.

She got straight to the point without wasting time on small talk.

The job consisted of simply attending parties of wealthy people, smiling, keeping up the conversation, and adding glamour to the evening.

No intimacy, strictly hostessing and modeling.

The salary was $5,000 a month net, plus accommodation, meals, and flights.

For Alina, $5,000 was an amount she couldn’t earn in Kiev in a year.

Victoria put the contract on the table.

It was thick in English with a Russian translation.

There were many clauses about penalties for being late and violating the dress code, but the most important one was about complete confidentiality.

Models were prohibited from posting stories, taking selfies at work, or revealing who was at the party and where it was taking place.

Victoria explained it simply.

The clients were shakes and big businessmen, and they didn’t want any gossip in the press.

Alina skimmed through the text.

She didn’t understand many of the legal terms, but the figure of $5,000 in the payment column overshadowed all her doubts.

She signed the contract without even consulting a lawyer.

She felt like she had won the lottery and would now save her family from poverty.

Before the trip, she had to undergo a medical examination.

Victoria sent Alina not to a regular clinic, but to a private medical center.

The doctor, a man in his 50s with cold hands, behaved strangely.

He barely listened to her heart or measured her blood pressure.

Instead, he examined Alena’s skin very carefully and at length.

He asked her to undress completely and shown a special lamp on her back, hips, and stomach.

He measured the distance between her moles with a tape measure, felt her skin for elasticity, and recorded information about any scars.

Alina asked why such a thorough examination of her skin was necessary.

The doctor replied curtly without looking up that the sun was very hot in the Emirates and the agency had to be sure that the model would not have problems with pigmentation or allergies.

It sounded logical and Alina calmed down.

The doctor stamped her fit certificate.

On October 14th, Alina flew out of Borisville.

She told her mother that she was going to work at a diamond exhibition and would be living in a hotel with other girls.

Her brother asked her to bring him a new phone and Alina promised to buy it with her first paycheck.

She was met at the airport in Dubai.

It was not a taxi, but a huge black SUV with tinted windows.

The driver in a white shirt silently took her suitcase and opened the door.

Alina sat down in the cool interior, expecting to see the skyscrapers and lights of the big city she had read so much about, but the car drove in the other direction.

They turned onto a wide highway, and half an hour later, the city lights were behind them.

All around was the darkness of the desert.

Alina tapped on the partition between the seats and asked the driver where they were going.

The driver replied in broken English that he was taking her to the company owner’s villa for a briefing and then to a hotel.

Alina tensed up but decided not to panic prematurely.

An hour later, the car turned off the highway onto a narrow road leading to a high fence.

The fence was made of stone 4 m high with barbed wire on top.

The gate opened and the jeep drove inside.

The territory was huge but empty.

No parties, no music.

In the middle of the courtyard stood a large white house resembling a palace but somehow uninhabited, too quiet.

At the entrance, she was met by a woman named Clare.

She was European, dressed in a strict business suit.

Clare did not smile.

She said immediately, “Welcome to the residence.

Hand over your phone and passport.

Alina was surprised and asked why.

Clare replied harshly that it was a security rule.

Very important people live here and no gadgets are allowed.

The passport is needed to register the visa.

Alina feeling uncomfortable under the gaze of the security guards handed over her phone and documents.

Clare promised that she would give her a work phone in the morning for communication.

Alina was taken to her room.

The room was luxurious, marble floors, a huge bed, expensive furniture, but the windows did not open and the door was locked from the outside as soon as Alina entered.

She was told to rest.

Alina was woken up early in the morning.

Two maids entered the room and brought breakfast and strange clothes.

A long white shirt made of natural silk similar to a hoodie.

Alina never saw her jeans and t-shirt again.

Clare came in after them and said that the work began with preparing her appearance.

Alina was taken to another wing of the house.

It smelled of dampness and flowers, a very strong cloying scent of roses.

She was led into a room lined with pink marble.

In the middle of the room stood a bathtub filled with murky pink water.

Claire said it was a special bath with oils to moisturize the skin.

Alina had to lie in it for 2 hours three times a day.

The first few days Alina tried to ask about work, about exhibitions, about when she would go to the city.

Clare replied monoselabically.

Soon, first we need to make you look perfect.

The food they brought Alina was strange.

It was mostly liquid soups and herbal flavored smoothies.

After eating, Alina felt very weak and sleepy.

Her head felt heavy.

Her thoughts were confused.

She wanted to sleep all the time.

She stopped worrying about the door being locked.

She didn’t care anymore.

She just lay on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and waited for someone to come and take her to the bathroom.

After a week, Alina noticed changes.

Her skin became very pale and soft like a baby’s.

But it was not a healthy softness.

Her skin became thin, and her veins showed through it.

Any touch was painful.

The water in the bath stung more and more each time.

The smell of roses, which at first seemed pleasant, now made her nauseous.

Clare came everyday, examined Elina, touched her hands and back, nodded to herself, and left.

Once Alina saw another girl in the corridor.

She was being led by two guards.

The girl could barely move her legs, her eyes were glassy, and she was looking through the walls.

She was wearing the same white robe.

Alina wanted to shout to her to ask what was going on, but her tongue wouldn’t obey her.

She felt as if she were in a fog.

On the 10th day, Alina was brought to an office.

A man in traditional Arab clothing was sitting there.

It was not the doctor who had examined her in Kiev, nor was it the driver.

It was the owner.

He was sitting at a table drinking tea.

Clare placed Alina in the center of the room and took off her robe.

Alina stood naked, shivering from cold and fear, but the drugs in her food suppressed her panic.

The man stood up, walked over to her, and ran his finger along her shoulder.

He didn’t look at her face.

He only looked at her skin.

He said something in Arabic and Clare translated.

The material is ready.

The quality is excellent.

We can begin the purification stage.

The purification stage turned out to be hell.

The baths were different now.

Something burning was added to the water.

Alina cried when she sat down in the water, but the guards held her there by force.

Her skin burned.

After the bath, they smeared her with thick ointments that froze the pain but made her body feel even more alien.

Alina realized that these were not spa treatments.

They were preparing her for something terrible.

In rare moments of clarity, when the effects of the drugs weakened a little, she tried to find a way out.

She knocked on the door, but no one opened it.

There were no windows at all in her new room in the basement.

only the ventilation hummed under the ceiling.

One night, she woke up to the sound of someone screaming.

The scream was distant, muffled by thick walls, but full of horror.

It wasn’t just a scream.

It was the howl of an animal being killed.

Alina huddled in the corner of the bed, covering her ears with her hands.

She realized that it was the girl she had seen in the hallway who was screaming.

In the morning, Clare came with a new batch of cocktails.

She was cheerful, which was rare.

She said, “Today is a great day.

Today, your transformation will begin.

You will become part of eternity.

” Alina looked at her and asked, “Where is that girl, the blonde?” Clare smiled with her lips, her eyes remaining cold.

She has already fulfilled her destiny.

She has become beautiful.

Alina was no longer fed solid food at all, only water with pink syrup.

She had become so weak that she could not get out of bed without help.

Her body had become almost transparent.

The tattoo on her shoulder blade, a small bird she had gotten when she was 18, became bright, as if drawn with a marker on paper.

Clare brought special tools, scrapers.

The maids began to scrape Alina’s skin everyday, removing the top layer of dead cells.

It didn’t hurt because of the ointments, but it was scary.

They polished her, like polishing wood before varnishing.

Alina was turning into a thing.

She was still breathing.

Her heart was still beating.

But to these people, she was already just an expensive piece of leather.

One day, three men entered her room.

They were not doctors or guards.

They were dressed in aprons like butchers or tanners.

One of them was carrying a briefcase with tools.

They silently examined Alina, discussing her as if she were not there.

One of them took her by the hand, turned her around, looked at her elbow, then at her tattoo.

He clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction when he saw the bird and said in English, “The design will have to be cut off or worked around in the cut.

” Alina understood.

They were not talking about her as a person.

They were talking about her as a piece of fabric for sewing.

The preparation process was completed on November 4th, exactly 3 weeks after Alina’s arrival in the United Arab Emirates.

According to data recovered from the servers of a private security company serving the perimeter of the estate on that day, a gray minivan without identification marks entered the territory delivering equipment classified in customs declarations as tools for processing organic materials.

Inside was a team of two specialists whose identities the investigation was only able to establish months later.

They were former employees of the pathology department of a private clinic in Eastern Europe, hired on contract through a chain of front companies.

Their task was not to treat patients, but to professionally extract biological material while preserving its integrity and aesthetic properties.

Alena’s morning began not with her usual intake of liquid food, but with a complete refusal of food and water.

This was standard pre-operative practice necessary to ensure that dehydration made the skin denser and drier which facilitated subsequent processing.

Clare, the personnel manager, entered the room accompanied by two orderlys.

Alina was given an injection of a powerful muscle relaxant mixed with a seditive.

The substance took effect instantly.

The girl’s consciousness remained relatively clear.

She could see and hear what was happening, but she completely lost control of her motor functions.

Her muscles relaxed to such an extent that she could not even move a finger or close her eyelids.

Her body turned into a heavy, unresponsive object, which the orderlys transferred to a stretcher and covered with a white sheet.

Alina was wheeled down long corridors in the basement, the existence of which she had been unaware of.

The walls here were lined with white tiles, and the air was saturated with the smell of ozone and sterilizing solutions, reminiscent of the smell of an operating room.

The journey ended in a room that appeared in the investigation documents as the ceremony hall.

It was a spacious circular room with a high domed ceiling.

In the center was a shallow pool carved from a single piece of pink marble.

The water in it was heated to a temperature of 38° and had a rich reddish pink hue due to the addition of damisk rose extract and synthetic anti-coagulants substances that prevent blood clotting.

Powerful surgical lamps were placed around the perimeter of the pool directed towards the center.

The customer was already in the room, the same man who had examined Alina earlier.

He was dressed in a sterile protective suit over which he wore a traditional robe.

He did not participate in the process physically.

His role was to observe.

For him, it was an act of possession.

The highest point of consumption when a person bought for money becomes a luxury item.

Alina, completely immobilized, was lowered into the warm water of the pool.

The liquid covered her body, leaving only her face above the surface.

Muscle relaxants blocked her gag reflex and attempts to gasp for air.

So there was no panic on a physiological level, only a cold awareness of the inevitability of the end.

The pink bride ritual did not involve the recitation of spells or mystical actions.

It was a cynical name for the technological process of slaughter.

The essence of the method was to bleed the victim in warm water saturated with oils, which allowed the pores of the skin to open as much as possible and absorb the preservatives while the organism was still alive.

Death came from hypoxia and blood loss.

The specialist approaching the head of the marble bathtub used a thin surgical scalpel.

Incisions were made in the corateed artery area and on the wrists underwater so that splashes would not get on the valuable material the skin of the chest, back and thighs.

Thanks to the anti-coagulants in the water, the blood flowed out quickly and mixed evenly with the pink solution without forming clots.

Alina died in silence.

Cardiac arrest was recorded by monitors connected to sensors on her temples 12 minutes after the procedure began.

All this time, her eyes were open, fixed on the white light of the lamps and the masked figures leaning over her.

As soon as the instruments showed a flat line, the body was immediately removed from the water.

Delay was unacceptable.

Post-mortem tissue changes were beginning which could reduce the quality of the skin.

The corpse was transferred to a steel dissection table with a fluid drainage system.

Then the tanners began their work.

This was the most difficult and expensive part of the operation requiring jeweler’s precision.

A normal autopsy in a morg is performed roughly with long incisions in the middle of the torso which irrevocably damages the integrity of the canvas.

Here a technique similar to plastic surgery was used.

Incisions were made along lines that would later become seams on the bags, on the inside of the arms, on the sides, in the groin area, and on the back of the neck.

The skin was removed slowly, separating it from the subcutaneous fat tissue and muscles millimeter by millimeter.

Particular attention was paid to the area on the shoulder blade where the bird tattoo was located.

The customer requested that the design be preserved so that it could be used as the central element of the design on one of the products, a kind of mark of authenticity for the exclusive series.

The craftsmen worked together for 3 hours.

The removed skin was a single layer resembling a wet suit.

It was immediately placed in a container with a tanning solution based on chromium and plant extracts to stop decomposition and preserve the collagen structure.

The remaining body, muscles, bones, and internal organs was no longer of interest to the customer.

It became biological waste.

According to the testimony of one of the villa’s former employees, given later in exchange for a reduced sentence, Alena’s remains were packed into sealed plastic bags and transported to a crematorium located on the grounds of a private veterinary clinic owned by the holding company.

There the body was burned under the guise of disposing of the carcass of a sick thoroughbred horse.

The ashes were scattered in the desert, leaving no trace of DNA that could be found by random search teams.

Meanwhile, in an underground workshop set up in the same basement, the skin began to be processed.

This process took 2 weeks.

Human skin is thinner and more elastic than cowhide, but more difficult to process.

It requires more delicate chemicals.

The craftsman used ancient tanning recipes used to make lambkin gloves, but with the addition of modern synthetic fixitives.

Alina’s skin was bleached to remove cadaavver spots and uneven pigmentation, then dyed a delicate cream beige color, which was listed in the order catalog as nude alabaster.

The tattoo on the piece of leather retained its colors, becoming the only bright spot on the pale background.

Three medium-sized women’s tote bags, one men’s belt, and two wallets were cut and sewn from the resulting material.

The accessories for the items were made of white gold and encrusted with small rubies symbolizing drops of blood.

On the inside of each item, on a red velvet lining, the workshop’s stamp and serial number were embossed, one of six.

There were no maiden tags or information about the composition.

Buyers of such items do not ask questions about their origin.

They pay for uniqueness and the awareness that they own something forbidden, something that once breathed.

The first bag, the one with a fragment of a bird tattoo on the front flap, remained with the shake.

He placed it in a special display case in his office next to his collection of rare antique weapons.

The rest of the items were packed in Blackwood gift boxes and sent by courier service to trusted business partners in Europe and Asia as New Year’s gifts.

It was a sign of special trust, an invitation to a closed club where human life is just a resource.

While the craftsman polished the gold clasps on Alena’s leather bags, her mother in Kiev began to sound the alarm.

3 weeks had passed since the last call.

Her daughter’s phone was turned off and her messages remained unread.

Her mother went to the police, but they were reluctant to take her statement.

The local inspector, a tired man with a pile of papers on his desk, said bluntly, “She went to Dubai to work as a model,” “Woman, you understand what they do there.

She went out partying, found a rich sponsor, and is too embarrassed to call.

She’ll show up in a month with money.

” No criminal case was opened and the police limited themselves to formally registering the missing person report.

However, Alena’s mother did not give up.

She found the contact details of the Golden Sands Agency on behalf of which Alina had been recruited.

The agency’s website looked professional, but when she tried to call the London number provided, the answering machine said that the number did not exist.

Emails were returned with a delivery error.

The woman began posting on social media in groups of Ukrainian immigrants in the Emirates begging for help.

Her posts with a photo of Alina and a request for anyone who had seen her in Dubai to respond began to spread across the internet.

This created the very information noise that the organizers of the business had been trying to avoid.

The security department of the Al-Malik Invest holding company recorded a surge in online activity related to the name Alina Sokalova.

Reputation monitoring algorithms issued a red level warning.

Clare received a notification on her encrypted phone.

The problem needed to be solved.

The simple disappearance of a person looked suspicious, especially against the backdrop of her mother’s active search.

A cover story was needed that would close the case once and for all.

A tragedy that would look natural and did not imply the presence of a body.

On December 14th, a month and a half after the murder, Alena’s mother received a call.

It was the Ukrainian consul in Dubai.

His voice was mournful and formal.

He reported that the Dubai police had completed their investigation into the incident that had occurred in the waters of the Persian Gulf.

According to the report, a group of tourists had rented a yacht for deep sea diving.

During the dive, a storm began and one of the girls was swept away by a strong underwater current.

Despite a week-long search by the Coast Guard, the body was not found, but personal belongings and documents in the name of Alina Sookova were found on board the yacht.

The consul expressed his condolences and said that an official death certificate would be sent by mail.

For the family, it was a devastating blow.

Her mother was hospitalized with a heart attack.

Her brother dropped out of school to care for her.

They believed the official version because they were presented with an internationally recognized document bearing official seals.

No one could have imagined that at that very moment, while the mother was mourning her drowned daughter, part of Alina was at a social event in Paris, hanging on the shoulder of the wife of a major oil magnate as an elegant cream colored accessory.

The legend was perfect, except for one detail.

Alena’s belongings, allegedly found on the yacht, were not handed over to the police immediately, but 2 days after the storm.

And among these belongings was a cell phone, the very one that had been taken from her on the first day.

The holding company’s security specialists wiped its memory, deleting all calls and photos.

But they made a technical mistake.

They did not take into account that the phone was synchronized with cloud storage, the password for which Alena’s brother knew.

When the phone was turned on on the yacht to create the appearance of its presence there, it caught the network for a second and sent an automatic geo tag to the cloud.

Alina’s brother, trying to find at least some recent photos of his sister, logged into her account a month after the funeral, which in fact did not take place.

An empty coffin was buried.

He saw that the phone’s last activity was recorded not at sea, nor in the port where the yacht was supposedly morowed.

The geoloccation point indicated coordinates deep in the desert, 70 km from the coastline in a place that was marked on Google Maps as private property, no trespassing.

This discrepancy became the crack in the dam of lies through which the truth would soon pour out.

As a technical college student, the young man understood that GPS data was difficult to falsify and that a phone could not accidentally be off by 70 km.

He began his own amateur investigation comparing dates.

The official date of death was December 12th, but the geo tag from the desert was dated October 14th, the day Alina arrived, and the next tag appeared only in December at the port.

Where was the phone for 2 months? And why did it go silent in that particular spot in the desert? He took screenshots, printed out maps, and instead of going to the police, who had already turned him away once, he wrote a letter to a journalist from an independent European publication who specialized in investigating human trafficking in Eastern Europe.

The journalist, whose name was Thomas, was initially skeptical about the letter from the Ukrainian student.

Hundreds of such stories about models sold into slavery come in.

But he was intrigued by the geoloccation detail.

He checked the coordinates.

It was not just a shed in the desert.

It was a huge fencedin complex that was not listed in any tourist registry, but consumed as much electricity as a small factory.

Thomas decided to dig deeper and discovered that the land belonged to a front company involved in leather and textile logistics.

A strange coincidence for a residence in the desert.

He initiated a request through his sources at Interpol to check if there were any other signals from that square.

The answer came a week later and was shocking.

Over the past 5 years, signals from four other phones belonging to girls from Muldova, Russia, and Bellarus, who are still missing, had briefly appeared from that area.

The case ceased to be a family tragedy and began to take on the proportions of a serial death conveyor belt.

Journalist Thomas Anderson, who specializes in investigating organized crime, arrived in Dubai on January 20th under the guise of a logistics consultant.

With the geoloccation data provided by Alina’s brother and a list of missing girls from Eastern Europe in hand, he understood that a direct confrontation with the local police at this stage would only lead to his deportation and the concealment of evidence.

Thomas chose a strategy of financial pressure.

Through his sources in European banking structures, he tracked the transactions of Al-Malik Invest.

It turned out that this holding company, officially engaged in real estate, regularly received transfers from closed auction houses in Europe marked for art and antiques.

However, not a single painting or sculpture passed through customs.

Instead, the customs declarations contained codes corresponding to the export of exotic animal leather products in small quantities.

Comparing the dates of the girl’s disappearances with the dates of shipment, the journalist discovered a direct correlation.

Each time, 3 to four weeks after the phone of the next model stopped connecting to the network in the area of the deserted villa, the company sent a parcel weighing 2 to 3 kg by courier to Paris, London or Hong Kong.

Thomas contacted Europole and provided them with the dossier he had compiled.

The key argument was the likelihood that citizens of European Union countries could also be involved in the purchase of human skin products which fell under the jurisdiction of international conventions on human trafficking and desecration of the bodies of the deceased.

The case was given priority status as the scandal threatened to cause irreparable damage to diplomatic relations.

On February 5th, after confirmation of satellite intelligence data, which recorded heat signatures characteristic of industrial furnaces on the villa’s territory, the Dubai prosecutor’s office was forced to issue a search warrant.

The operation was carried out by special forces to prevent information leaks.

Early in the morning of February 8th, armored vehicles blocked the perimeter of the residence.

The villa’s security guards did not resist, following instructions not to engage in combat with state forces.

During the raid, the mansion was occupied by manager Clare Miller, Dr. Hassan, and several technical staff members.

The owner of the villa, Shik Abdullah al- Malik, was absent, attending business negotiations in the city center.

During an initial inspection of the living quarters, the task force found nothing suspicious except for locked rooms in the relaxation area, which were empty and thoroughly cleaned with chlorine.

However, technical specialists discovered a hidden elevator leading to the second basement level.

It was there that investigators found evidence that turned the case of a missing person into a case of serial murders of particular cruelty.

The basement was a fullyfledged production workshop.

In one of the rooms, equipped as an operating room, forensic experts found traces of biological fluids in the drains of a marble bathtub.

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