One hundred and thirty-four members of the Zwi Migdal Society, which under the guise of a mutual aid society had been carrying on white slave traffic for a quarter of a century, were ordered released yesterday by the Court of the First Instance.
The 134 members had been arrested and imprisoned in 1929 largely through the efforts of the International Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women.
For twenty-five years the Society had functioned, conducting a traffic in white slaves, the majority being young Polish Jewesses.
All the 450 members of the organization were implicated in the white slave plot. Three hundred fled Argentine when their affiliation was discovered and cannot ever return, being placed in the category of fugitives and rebels.
Two members of the Society, charged with corruption, were sentenced to prison by the Appeal court yesterday. The others were released, the appeal court holding that since the Province of Bunenos Aires had given the Society a charter to function as a Jewish mutual aid and burial society, it could not be charged with being an illicit association.
At the time of the exposure in 1929, a sensation was created.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.