Border police arrested two human traffickers who controlled a trafficking ring from Bulgaria to France.

Those arrested were a Bulgarian man and woman, aged respectively 24 and 25, an Interior Ministry media statement said.

They forced eight Bulgarian girls into prostitution by threatening and maltreating them.

Bulgarian and French authorities co-operated for more than a year to crack the ring. Officers uncovered the ring while examining an illegal hotel in the French town of Mulhouse.

Police in Bulgaria detained the traffickers in their apartment in the town of Devnya and seized evidence.

According to police, both traffickers had earned nearly 90 000 from their illegal actions.