Zwi Migdal members regarded their “merchandise” in much the same way owners of black slaves in North America and the Caribbean did: they were less than human, with only economic value. However, unlike the enslavement of blacks by Caucasians, this was a Jew-on-Jew crime, with family members often preying on their own kin: not only were offers of a better life “in America” extended to nieces and sisters-in-law back home, but family men who had left their wives behind in Eastern Europe sometimes brought them to Argentina or Brazil in order to force them into prostitution. These men may have left Eastern Europe believing in the myth of incredible riches, but they were unskilled and did not speak the language and would inevitably fail to find jobs. The Warsaw Society embraced these men and convinced them to adopt the new entrepreneurial spirit in which the pimps viewed themselves as businessmen.

Pimping in Argentina was so culturally associated with Jews that the name for a pimp in Spanish, caftan, was borrowed from the word for the long black coat worn by Orthodox Jewish men. Similarly, polaca, the word for a prostitute, was adopted from the Yiddish name for Polish women.

Records of Jewish ownership of brothels from as early as the 1895 census in Buenos Aires show in one city block alone a concentration of twenty brothels housing two hundred women. Concurrently, an 1899 city registry of prostitutes in Buenos Aires reveals that 30 percent of them were Jewish. A record from 1913 shows more than 3,000 brothels in Buenos Aires (and 430 in Rio de Janeiro), with Jewish ownership disproportionally large—data corroborated by records of the Varsovia Society from that year, listing four hundred members (a roster that soon grew to more than five hundred). By the 1920s, Jewish brothels employed thirty thousand women, each generating on average 3,000 pesos a month in a country where the average monthly salary was under 100 pesos. At the turn of the twentieth century, Zwi Migdal’s profits were reported at $50 million a year.

The union’s activities comprised not only trafficking but also gaming houses and smuggling operations. Members pooled their resources to bribe government officials, policemen, and legislators, keeping many of them on a monthly payroll. When pimps were arrested, the mutual-aid society bribed judges and prosecutors or hired shrewd lawyers; either the charges were dropped or the cases won. The bribing at all levels included not only cash, entertainment, and expensive gifts, but also apartments and cars. Before long, Jews were seen as the source of the systemic corruption in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.