The virgin auctions: Colombian street gangs sell girls as young as TEN to drug lords and foreign tourists Colombian street gangs are recruiting girls as young as ten in a sickening trade that sees their virginities auctioned off to drug barons and foreign tourists. The youngsters are plucked from the slums - or communas - into a life of organised crime with the promise of stylish clothes, cocaine and financial help for their families. But once they enter the gang's uncompromising influence, they are ruthlessly protected like the highly profitable commodities they have now become - and threatened with death if they refuse to co-operate. Potential targets in a sickening trade: Girls play in Medellin, Colombia, where street gangs are selling virgins to drug lords and foreign tourists (none of the children here were affected) Prey: The girls are plucked from slums - or communas - like this one in Medellin into a life of organised crime with the promise of stylish clothes, cocaine and financial help for their families Trusted clients are offered brochures of the children - either physical copies or in an online version - of up to 60 girls, according to an investigation by Corporacion Consultoria de Conflicto Urabano (C3). They are then passed a secret PIN which grants them access to bid on the auction website. Prices as high as five million pesos (around £1,600) are known to have been paid to take a girl's virginity. When the auction is finished, the sites are taken down and the brochures destroyed. In Medellin, the home town of drug lord Pablo Escobar, whose demand for teenage virgins was notorious, the tradition of offering girls up for orgies with mafia kingpins is depressingly common. Luis Pardo, Director of NGO Corporacion Consultoria de Conflicto Urabano (C3), which has been investigating the phenomenon over the last year, told The Independent: 'This is a girl's first [sexual] experience. They pass from the hands of one capo to other capos and by the end they have become prostitutes. Perversely, the improvements in security that have revolutionalised Medellin from a drug-ridden war zone to thriving city, have opened it up to sex tourism - and another client base for the gangs. Drug lord: Medellin was the home town of Pablo Escobar, whose demand for teenage virgins was notorious At the height of his power in 1989, Pablo Escobar, head of the infamous Medellin Cartel, was ranked the 7th richest man in the world by Forbes magazine with an estimated £18billion fortune. In that year, he sold 80 per cent of the world's cocaine, bombed governments and is believed to have killed nearly 4,000 people. Although an enemy of the U.S. and Colombian governments, he was a hero to many in Medellin where he distributed money to the poor. He was shot dead in December 1993 as he tried to escape police. Clara Ines, the director of Medellin women's rights NGO Vamos Mujersaid: 'In the context of the war, and in the context of the "narcotisation" of the culture, women have gone from being thought of as sexual objects to becoming merchandise. Women have become the spoils of war. The authorities say they are powerless to intervene because of the grip the cartels hold on the street, to the point of charging their own taxes to resolve neighbourly disputes. They also claim they are tied by the silence that surrounds the issue as many of the children enter the trade of their own volition. However, many of those working with the victims say the response of the authorities has been weak. 'This phenomenon exists and it is getting worse every day, but there is no state or police action,' says Pardo. Medellin earned its unfortunate reputation as one of the world's most dangerous cities thanks to Pablo Escobar, the most renowned criminal of all time. The city was the fortress of the cocaine king and every day several car bombs could explode as Escobar's cartel went to war with the state. Lawless: Armed gangs hold all the power in many of Medellin slums which the authorities makes it impossible to crack down on the sex trade (file picture)