Crackdown On Sex Trafficking Leads To Rescue Of 59 Women

Police have rescued 59 women trafficked into Scotland’s booming off-street sex industry.

In a major nine-month crackdown, officers from all eight Scottish forces raided saunas, massage parlours and covert brothels across the country – many believed to be run, or at least supplied, by Chinese organised crime.

Detectives arrested 35 suspects, most believed to be foreign, and identified 59 adult women they suspect were victims of sexual exploitation – many from China.

The raids were part of Operation Pentameter II, a UK-wide drive that helped rescue a suspected 351 sex slaves, 13 of them children.

It was the largest police crackdown on human trafficking to date and resulted in the arrest of 528 people across Britain.

The operation has again exposed the scale of the UK’s off-street sex trade, a network of around 1000 brothels exploiting thousands of women, many trafficked into the country.

“The numbers have doubled since Pentameter I,” said Detective Superintendent Michael Orr of Strathclyde Police, who co-ordinated the campaign north of the border. “Suffice to say, there’s a high level of demand.”

Senior police sources stressed many of the women who were “rescued” had declined to give evidence against their traffickers, mostly because they were terrified.

Only 15 of the 59 women initially identified as victims have confirmed they were trafficked. All were described as from being from “south-east Asia”. Tara, a group run by Glasgow Community and Safety Service, an offshoot of the city council, has now identified women from 42 countries working as prostitutes in the city.

Ann Hamilton, of GCCS, yesterday called for the Scottish Government to outlaw the purchase of sex.

Scottish detectives are finding an increasing number of young women from south-east Asia in brothels across the country, the surest sign yet that Chinese Triads and Snakeheads, already deeply embedded into cannabis and counterfeit goods, are branching out into sex trafficking.

“The tentacles of crime gangs extend over to our country from that area of the world,” said Mr Orr.

“People that are involved in serious and organised crime can lend their hand to drugs, to armed robbery, to general smuggling, to human trafficking. If there is a market they will find a way of servicing that market no matter what the commodity is,” he added.

Police and other sources yesterday said that China is far from the only country from where women are smuggled for Scotland’s booming off-street sex trade.

However, detectives stress one of the big differences between Pentameter II and its predecessor is the sheer growth in “south-east Asian” involvement. Suspected sex-trafficking victims were found in every police force area in Scotland.

There were 18 in Strathclyde and 17 in Lothian and Borders as well as five in Central Scotland, three in Fife, one in Grampian and 10 in Tayside. Even Scotland’s smallest forces, Northern Constabulary (three) and Dumfries and Galloway (two), were affected.