Offensive, abstemious, and quite stingy: Torbe, according to his employees

Mischievous to offend. Mercantilist. Obsessive at times. Addicted to the internet. Enemy of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. Quite stingy with money. Sexist. Naive at times, manipulative at others.

This is, in broad strokes, the portrait that eight of the current and former workers paint of Torbe, confined in the penitentiary center of Estremera since the end of April, for publishing child pornography and dealing with human beings.

"In porn, not everyone is liked by everyone. They may respect you professionally if you are successful, especially abroad, but there will always be people who speak ill of you on a personal level, which hurts more. This is a dark industry: there is a lot of cocaine, a contract is made for every 10 under-the-table payments, and most mix feelings with business. I always say that the best thing about porn is the dicks and the worst, the knives." The quote comes from a former actress who has worked with Torbe in different periods. "I left, we stabbed each other, and came back... and then I did it again, that's just how it works," she explains behind a cup of red tea and a pack of imported cigarettes.

ead here: Provisional detention without bail for Torbe"

He was in the industry for eight years, long enough to understand that in Spanish porn, they play hard and forget quickly: 'We don't care what Torbe is accused of or any other producer they put in jail, because in the business, everyone knows what each one does - and doesn't do. Torbe has been investigated many times, and sometimes caught, but with the 'ruso' thing, they got him. When the news broke, two or three friends wrote to me 'About time!'. Many of us thought Torbe should have fallen earlier.

Witnesses point to the arrival of the Ukrainian partner as a negative turning point

By the Russian is meant the Ukrainian Borys Malynovskyi, a partner of Torbe who also remains in pretrial detention. All consulted sources agree in pointing out Malynovskyi as a key figure in the Universal operation. They describe him as a tall and slim man, blond, with dark circles and a rough character. Very few have managed to see him in Torbe's office; in a year, the time he had been collaborating with the Basque, he has only been there twice. On the first occasion, he placed Mila, a secretary who acts as a translator, driver, and advisor to the girls that Borys imported from Ukraine and Russia.

Torbe's business is based on two lines: the porn film production company and webcams. Many of his actresses work in both, and a few even get involved in management roles. As a producer, many see Torbe as a gateway to the world of professional porn. He pays little and is even less interested in the final editing of the scenes. He often films with dwarfs, obese individuals, or people pretending to have disabilities. For a bukakke, a male masturbation scene with up to 30 individuals on a single actress, he pays 400 euros, '200 or 300 less than his competitors,' according to the production company. 'If the actress refuses to swallow the semen, he pays her less. If fewer actors show up for an orgy than expected, he prorates the pay for the actress. He has urged some to do trial sessions that he later published. He is quite stingy with money.'

Many actresses compromise to be in the spotlight. They film some scenes and make the leap to other more prestigious producers. A former actress, now working for another producer, uses a football analogy to express her view: 'Actresses have a series of scenes, like footballers. Once you've done them, people get tired of you and you have to change your stage name and producer. In the end, not even that. With Torbe, you earn less, although he extends the careers of his actresses more, he doesn't offer you 20 scenes a month like other places.' Although he paid less, he didn't allow his actresses to work for others.

Imported actresses

None of this mattered to his partner Borys. He never showed the slightest interest in actresses or Torbe's porn. He used their facilities to do something he called premium bukkakes. He only worked with Russian and Ukrainian women he brought in on direct flights. At Barajas, Mila would pick them up, take them to Torbe's studio, and eventually find them a place to sleep. Most of the time, the girls would come and go on the same day.

Borys' bukkakes were not broadcast on the internet. In fact, no one knows what the Russian did with those videos in which he demanded that the girls go to the limit. Two sources confirm the extremes collected in the summary of Operation Universal: 'Many women didn't know exactly what they were coming for. They weren't prepared to make porn at that level, so brutal, and they cried inconsolably. Some vomited, others had gag reflexes. Many wanted to leave,' they detail. While Mila acted as a firefighter, Torbe did not directly participate in these productions, they say, but was aware of all the abuses. 'In recent times, he was very upset with Borys, but he didn't cut ties. I suppose he was making good money with him'.

It is not the first time that Torbe flirts with dangerous friendships. The Basque man admitted, in an interview given to this newspaper two years ago, that he was about to partner with a drug trafficker. The producer even traveled to Las Vegas, all expenses paid, to close the deal, which was ultimately thwarted by a Civil Guard operation against cocaine trafficking.

Torbe, along with some of the girls who work in Villacerda. (Pablo López Learte)

Torbe knows who he associates with. In the 2014 interview, which lasted about three hours, I got hooked on this topic. I asked him several times why a businessman like him, with a career and established in his sector, is willing to risk everything for the 150 million pesetas that the drug trafficker offered him. I only got laughs and lukewarm explanations, typical of an unconscious person or someone who has a weakness for large sums of money. Later, he had an offer from a private equity firm that he dismissed as 'small change'.

Those who know him well describe Torbe as a simple person, without elaborate passions. "He likes to eat, sleep, and fuck" in generous doses. If it were up to him, he would spend his life reading - all genres, especially self-help -, playing PlayStation, and connecting to the internet in the early hours. Torbe goes to bed at dawn, and many times they have to call him from the office to take the scooter and go to work.

There are times, they say, when he is motivated and spends the day working, whether in porn scenes or starring in funny comedies for the internet or singing to offend someone. Because Torbe likes to offend or, as he prefers to call it, provoke. He knows that notoriety also comes from calling all the women of Torrelavega ugly, equating Romanians with thieves, or insisting on bringing stereotypes from society that tends to be scandalized, such as priests, dwarfs, or obese people.

His environment does not see Torbe capable of raping or drugging one of his actresses

Some of his employees claim that Torbe is a sexist who has learned to deal with women. That he knows all too well how to convince the girls who come with doubts. That he demands a scene with him from all of them to thrive in the company. That his preferences are obvious and that many times his actresses move to his house. 'One of those who now denounce him was living in his house for several months and even sent two Bulgarians there to rob him,' criticize from the producer's circle. Once again the thesis of the daggers.

None of the sources consulted, some of them openly opposed to Torbe, see him capable of raping or drugging his actresses, the most serious accusation leveled against him in the summary of Operation Universal. For years, his employees have not seen him drink a beer or light a cigarette. His drug tolerance is zero. When he has encountered actresses addicted to cocaine, perhaps the worst endemic evil in the porn industry, he has publicly criticized them and even fired them. Other actresses point out that Torbe systematically refused to shoot scenes with them if they smelled of alcohol or tobacco.

Torbe remains in Estremera prison reading and taking advantage to go on a diet, while outside two trials, the press and the porn industry, intertwine with the summary of Operation Universal. Stabbing incidents will not be lacking until then.