BUENOS AIRES – Argentine police rescued 12 Paraguayan women and 1 Dominican who were being held as slaves and sexually exploited in brothels in the town of Chacabuco in Buenos Aires province, police spokesmen said.

The Buenos Aires provincial police early on Saturday freed the victims in simultaneous raids conducted at six brothels operating clandestinely in Chacabuco, 205 kilometers (127 miles) west of the capital.

Sixteen people were arrested and the brothels, where security personnel seized drugs and large sums of cash, were shut down.

The Argentine non-governmental organization La Alameda complained in September that just in the city of Buenos Aires there were more than 800 clandestine brothels where more than 4,000 women were being sexually exploited, most of them foreigners.