The correctional court in Brussels sentenced a 36-year-old Bulgarian to four years in jail and a fine of 22 000 euro for pimping and trafficking women. The man was also found guilty for participating in an international criminal organisation, Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws said on January 7 2009.

The Bulgarian had been arrested on May 17 2007 at the Bulgarian-Serbian border, where he was in the company of three of his victims. Later investigation found he had passed the same bordre three months earlier with four other victims, Het Laatste Nieuws said.

According to the court, the man was one of the lieutenants of Georgi Komitov, alias Chernia and otherwise known in Belgium as the Bulgarian Lover Boy, who was convicted by the court of appeals in Brussels to eight years imprisonment in October 2008, Het Laatste Nieuws said.