Damascus, Jun 12 (IANS): The Syrian Interior Ministry has announced that a criminal ring that trafficked poverty-stricken women had been dismantled in the countryside of the capital Damascus.

In a statement, the Ministry on Sunday said its Criminal Security Branch, after investigation and monitoring, busted a large human trafficking network and arrested all its members, adding they would soon be tried in court.

The network had trafficked Syrian women out of the country in cooperation with "people running parallel networks within one of the neighbouring countries," the Ministry added, without detailing further as quoted by Xinhua news agency report.

In 2020, the branch's chief in Damascus, Walid Abdelali, said the crime was born out of the crisis in Syria, according to the al-Watan online newspaper.

He said those criminals took advantage of the poverty of some people to dupe them with so-called employment opportunities, thus trafficking them internally and sometimes externally.