Sordid world of sex slavery
THE brothel in Gascoyne Place operated on a 24-hour basis as a 'massage parlour' which advertised "Asian Dolls" and "Asian Touch".
The victim – a 29-year-old mother-of-two whom The Herald is calling "Sue" to protect her identity – had been forced to service up to 10 men a day in the St Jude's flat.
She had been in the city for a week before being told she was to be moved to another unknown city to continue her work.
Ordered to service one more man before she left, she took a risk and begged the client – a Danish man known in court as Mr K – to rescue her using a mixture of Thai and sign language to explain she had been trafficked into prostitution.
He had left, spoke to his ex-wife who he was visiting in Plymouth and together they hatched a plan. He called back the next day, claimed he was a police officer and grabbed the woman. He and his ex-wife then used a electronic translation machine, typing in the question "prisoner?" which when shown in Thai caused Sue to break down sobbing.
Judge Gilbert said Mr K's conduct was to be "highly commended" and investigators said it was his bravery which not only saw Sue freed from sexual slavery, but also lit the fuse which saw those involved in the evil trade brought to justice.
The story Sue told was amended over time as she became more trusting of British police and realised they were deadly serious in their desire to catch those responsible, prepared even to travel to her home country and liaise with the Royal Thai Police.
Sue explained she originally owned a food factory in Thailand but, getting into financial difficulty, she borrowed money from a friend. However, she was then introduced to a member of the trafficking gang who had actually lent the money to her friend. Like many in the thrall of loan sharks, despite paying off the debt, she was unable to pay off the astronomical interest. She sold all her assets, but was told she needed to pay more money, becoming stuck in a circle of debt until she was told she had to go to work for the gang in the UK as a waitress.
Sue only knew each person by a nickname, making the investigation very difficult.
The head of the trafficking gang in Thailand was a woman she knew as 'Jaiju' – real name Chirapha Thanaworavibul. She had previously been convicted and jailed for 16 years for false documentation. SOCIT officers learned the at one stage the US authorities had wanted to extradite Jaiju for trafficking underage girls for prostitution.
Sue was trafficked into the UK, accompanied by Jaiju on or around September 13, 2007, in possession of a passport and visa obtained on false documents. They initially flew into Dublin airport on Irish visas as the British authorities had refused her a visa.
They then took the train to Belfast and flew to Gatwick on a domestic flight where visa – and passports – were unnecessary.
Sue told police two more women – a trafficker called Phillaiporn Satienthanakorn, and another trafficked woman called 'Pear' – had come with them.
They were taken to an Earl's Court flat, where Jaiju and Sue met with Jarawee Faknak – known as 'Por'. £10,000 was handed to Jaiju for the work she had done so far. She then calmly called a cab and returned to Thailand. Pear was sold and taken away by a Thai man. Neither of them have ever been traced.
Sue was told she was now part of a contract for £30,000 and would have to gross around £60,000 working as a prostitute to pay it off. Of every pound she earned, half would go the brothel owners and half to those she was "debt bonded" to.
Faknak herself had a sleeping partner – Chananchida Chankaeo – known as "Jak" who fronted a third of the £10,000 for an equivalent return.
Astonishingly, police learned both Chankaeo and Faknak were ex-prostitutes who had been subject to their own contracts in similar circumstances. Having paid off their own debts they chose to turn pimp, treating others as inhumanely as they were treated.
Sue's passport was taken from her and, on September 17, she was put on a train at King's Cross railway station to Chesterfield. There she was met by Yu Ming Lee – known as 'Mark'. Acting on information from Devon and Cornwall's SOCIT, Nottinghamshire police later arrested Lee and carried out their own inquiries, uncovering brothels across Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, all owned and managed by Lee. They found paperwork which showed his brothels made £21,000 in just 25 days.
Sue was kept at a brothel in the Chesterfield area for a week, with Lee's aunt, Foong Choo Lee acting as maid. She was forced to work from 8am to 11pm, seeing several men a day, who paid the maid up to £60 for full sex.
Sue was then put on a train to Aberdeen where a busier brothel owned and run by Jutamas Tan Songglin awaited her. Prosecutor Andrew Oldland told the court she had be available round the clock, service up to 15 men a day, perform sex acts described as "more extreme", with customers "sometimes violent and drug users".
Det Con Rob Clement, Operation Celsius case officer, said the regular movement of trafficked women is used to keep them disorientated.
He said: "They don't know where they are, which town, which part of the country. They don't know where to turn to. One girl trafficked around the UK used to take a bit of post each time she was moved, so she knew where she had been. In each location it would just be the girl and the maid.
"It also meant each brothel can advertise it has a fresh girl each week, because the punters get bored quickly."
One evening Songglin went out and Sue fled. In terror she ran to a local shop, begging them for help. In what turned out to be a pre-planned safeguard, Sue had been given the number of a person called Mai Porn who would protect her if things got bad in the UK. In fact it was a cynical ploy whereby if any girl escaped, they could be recaptured.
Oblivious to this, Sue rang the number and spoke to Vithool Gomart – known as "Tuu" – in Luton. He wired her money to buy a train ticket to meet him. He assured her she would be kept safe with people in Plymouth. Gomart claimed had been in England for 20 years, working as a chef and a driver for the Thai embassy. Now Gomart just transported trafficked prostitutes.
During the car journey Gomart told Sue she had actually been sold for £15,000 to Malaysian mother and daughter brothel keepers Mee Wong and Grace Lim.
Sue said she felt as if she had gone "from the mouth of a tiger into the jaws of a crocodile".
Lim had already done her mother's bidding, renting the flat in July 2007, hiring a maid and finding a supplier of prostitutes. In the previous four months the mother and daughter team had made so much money, they decided to expand, setting up another brothel in Taunton, Somerset. She also visited Torquay with the idea of setting up another brothel.
Seven days and dozens of men later, Sue was told by brothel maid – 57-year-old illegal immigrant Ching Tiong who greeted punters and collected the money – that Gomart was arriving to spirit her away again. Tiong – jailed last April for two years – told Sue to see the last client – Mr K – first.
But so smooth and well-organised were the traffickers that when police raided Gascoyne Place on October 9, Sue had already been replaced by another trafficked woman.
Det Sgt Ian Tomlinson, deputy Senior Investigating Officer, said each location was visited, adding weight to Sue's story, exposing more brothels and trafficked women.
Songglin – who had a British passport in the name of Nina Hong – was initially arrested by Grampian police in Aberdeen for running a brothel but later released. On November 23, 2007 Songglin was arrested at Heathrow, wielding a Thai passport, with a student visa, in her own name.
In her luggage police found three Cadbury's Fingers boxes taped together. Inside the middle one was £10,393 in cash.
While Wong was arrested by Plymouth police, they believed Lim had fled to Malaysia. But financial records led to her being arrested in Taunton on October 20, 2007, where she and her mother had the second brothel with another trafficked woman. They also found records which showed between July 2 and August 5 the Plymouth brothel earned them more than £18,000, while the Taunton one had made them £1,430 in just three days.
Over the next 18 months of the investigations, SOCIT officers travelled to Aberdeen, Luton, Chesterfield, London, Slough, Maidenhead, Southampton, Belfast and Bangkok.
They found the traffickers set up false companies in Thailand, naming themselves as directors and their victims as their "employees" to aid the legitimisation and ability to create travel documents.
They would go to extraordinary lengths to make their documents appear as legitimate as possible. Sue was flown from Bangkok to Hong Kong, then Macaw, then back to Bangkok so her passport had a more authentic appearance.
Det Sgt Tomlinson said that while Operation Celsius took out the end product in the UK, the "knock-on effect" has had a far bigger impact with the Thai authorities now investigating other trafficked women. He said: "The success of the investigation is testament to the amount of work done and the dedication of the team. We started with a confused victim and a series of nicknames across the UK and abroad. There's a real sense of satisfaction in knowing there's a global knock-on effect in what we did."
Both officers admit they were surprised to find it was not "a male dominated business" with women happy to coerce, threaten and beat other women into prostitution.
Det Con Clement said: "There is coercion, but also a degree of acceptance. Even the unwilling ones, after 12 months of paying off their debt, become numb to it. There are lots of psychological twists to it. Even after you pay off your debt, back in Thailand there is the family shame of being a prostitute. You can't rehabilitate yourself. So they carry on and form their own business, using other trafficked girls.
"They have the sense that this is the norm – that you pay your debt off and then you can make a great deal of money, certainly by comparison to earnings in Thailand. They don't see it as particularly wrong because it was done to them. Some of those arrested acted as if we were persecuting them, because it went on everywhere. They seemed surprised at being caught and surprised how seriously we took it. I know it sounds corny, but it is the modern form of slavery. You are selling people as slaves.
"This was a large, well established and profitable Thai trafficking and brothel network operating throughout the UK. Names of those involved have raised flags in Australia, Japan and France.
"We've been able to establish a good working relationship between Devon and Cornwall Constabulary and the Royal Thai police. As a result we've been able to smooth the way and introduce other forces with similar cases to the Thai authorities. I think it will help both sides target trafficking in the future.
"We can show that trafficking of women for sexual exploitation will not be tolerated in Devon and Cornwall. We want the message to go out to these people that it doesn't matter where you are – be it Plymouth, Truro, Taunton, Exeter or Torbay – we will come after you and you will be brought to justice."
Both detectives recognise that if Sue had not awoken the conscience of her final client, her life as a sex slave would have continued.
Det Sgt Tomlinson said: "It was quite a brave decision by the man. He did the right thing and rescued this woman. If clients or neighbours have concerns they can call Devon and Cornwall Constabulary on 08452 777444 in strict confidence or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111."
Det Chief Insp Kevin Tilke, the senior SOCIT officer, said he believes that anyone who used a prostitute who had been trafficked into the UK against her will was committing "a form of rape".
He said: "By their actions, they are condoning and encouraging the trafficking of these women on a global basis.
"This investigation demonstrates that this type of crime can be found not just in big cities of the UK, but also in local places."
Regrettably, Sue's story did not end with a happy-ever-after.
She was eventually repatriated to Thailand and taken into Witness Protection.
However, she was re-approached by another trafficker who planned to send her to Australia. Fortunately a social worker with the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Bangkok had been assigned to Sue and she alerted the Royal Thai police.
They arrested the man while Sue and he were in the Thai consulate where he was trying to get her a new visa. Police say several more people have since been arrested in Thailand for a range of offences, including trafficking and forgery of documents.
Six days before police raided the Plymouth brothel, the nationwide Operation Pentameter 2 was launched to tackle those being trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It followed Pentameter 1, launched in 2006. No announcements have been made about Pentameter 3.
Recent reports suggest prostitution and people-trafficking is now the third most lucrative black-market trade in the world after gun-running and drugs-smuggling.
