rashka
07-06-2013, 11:24 PM
Transcript of Part 1 Video.
These are the faces of modern-day sex traffickers. Albanian gangsters responsible for a shocking new crime wave, forcing young girls into prostitution.
One of the girls says: "they're killing people for money, doing very very bad things only for money"
This is happening everywhere just in London's Soho Albanians control 3/4 of the brothels.
"I didn't believe that in the 21st century that this sort of thing happened anymore."
But how did they get here? How do they operate and why are they targetng the UK?
I'm Rageh Omaar and I'm going in search of the violent gangs, the high tech forces and the organized networks that are the new face of Britain's criminal underworld.
21st century prostitution in Britain has a nasty edge. The girls are getting younger.The prices for their trade lower.
An incredible 85% of the girls are foreigners.
It's an industry that's been taken over by brutal Albanian gangsters.
We'll be going undercover to find out how vicious the industry has become and how the Albanian gangs operates and I'll be following the horrific case of Elena, a 15 year old girl sex trafficked into Britain.
In my teenage years around Soho one remembers all these women in the doorways saying come on darling do you want to come in here, do you want to see a peep show. Now, it's become an industry. That's a very important word because to me industry means product, organization, profit on a mass scale. It's an industry one controlled though by the criminal underworld.
My investigation into sex trafficking gangs begins in Sheffield. Elena was a 15 year old Lithuanian girl who was sex trafficked into England after being enticed with a summer job as a waitress.
The head of South Yorkshire police's people trafficking unit, Detective Sargeant Alastair Duncan was brought in to investigate this shocking case.
"This is where the 15 year old victim was taken to when she arrived in Sheffield. She was taken up there and raped."
Detective constable Darren B. works with the victims of trafficking and he's asked us to keep his identity hidden. He told me the gangsters go to great lengths to obtain young women and in Elena's case this meant tricking her parents into signing documents allowing her to travel abroad alone.
"Because of her age she has to get permission from her parents to travel to the UK. Her parents sign these documents basically allowing her to travel un-accommodated. These are just some of the lengths they'll go to, these people, when recruiting victims. So it's quite sophisticated. They don't just drag people off the street."
In my experience and I have researched this as a reporter, as a correspondent, very few girls go and say "Uh I'd like to be a prostitute, can you help me?" You are in an Eastern European country, you get promised that you're gonna be taken to London, you'll work as a waitress, you'll work in a hair salon. It ends up being prostitution. That's the key point. They enter into a world that they never expected, never wanted, never dreamed and they are kept there with threats and force.
The men behind the trafficking of Elena were an Albanian gang. Shaban Maka and Xhevahir Pisha, both illegal immigrants.
We spoke to Mohamed Veliu, an Albanian journalist who spent years undercover to expose Albanian criminals.
He told me that the gangsters had tricked their way into this country and had made the UK their HQ by setting up hundreds of brothels right across the country.
"In past 10 years Britain has been a magnet for Albanian criminals. They came in the UK in 1998 when the conflict was in Kosovo. They claimed assylum and all that expertise and criminal activity, especially in prostitution, they did bring it to the UK."
Albanian pimps are sneaking into the UK because of the huge profits that can be made here. The price of buying sex in Britain is 2 or 3 times higher than in the rest of Europe. The Albanians have taken over the vice rackets with ease, thanks to their notoriety for extreme violence.
"Albanians won reputation as ruthless, as very violent. So that reputation helped them in the UK to open all the doors."
The UK sex industry is worth an annual 275 million pounds. Vice gangs are trafficking up to 8000 women into Britain every year. That's more than 20 girls every day.
I wanted to find out more about the 15 year old girl who'd ended up in Sheffield. I discovered that her ordeal began at Heathrowe airport the moment she stepped off the plane from Vilnius and was met by Pisha and Maka. They were planning to abuse her and sell her around the country.
"She was sold at that point in the region of 3 to 4000 pounds I believe. And the guy who bought her, an Albanian guy, took her to an address in London and within 24 hours of arriving in the UK - she was actually raped and beaten by this man. He explained to her that he now owned - this girl."
I got an insight into the horror that awaited Elena by speaking to another Eastern European woman called Anna who'd also been sex trafficked into the UK. "They told me you have to work because I paid the money for you. That's the way I found out why I'm here. One client came and chose me. I went into the room and after I go 2 minutes and asking a girl what should I do. I didn't know to do nothing, and she said do this, this. I go into the room and I saw the client naked and I started crying. The customer started shouting... you never did this job before, what the hell are you doing here, where's your pimp."
The gang relied on the fact that Anna would be to terrified to contact her parents for help.
"You got two types of treatment. We've got pimps who beat the girls, who put violence on them. On the other hand, some other pimps - they treat girls nicely, they buy them designer clothes, making them believe that the pimp's in love with her. They feel, well he loves me, he's treating me nicely so I'm going to work next day, I'm going to try my best, to make lots of money, we're going to buy a house, we're going to have a nice life and future. But that is not the case. All the money goes to the pimps, the girls and less."
Mohamed told us that the gangs often terrorize the girls and then show them an act of kindness making them easier to manipulate.
Documentary. Part 1.
http://youtu.be/JuWI7erUb1c
These are the faces of modern-day sex traffickers. Albanian gangsters responsible for a shocking new crime wave, forcing young girls into prostitution.
One of the girls says: "they're killing people for money, doing very very bad things only for money"
This is happening everywhere just in London's Soho Albanians control 3/4 of the brothels.
"I didn't believe that in the 21st century that this sort of thing happened anymore."
But how did they get here? How do they operate and why are they targetng the UK?
I'm Rageh Omaar and I'm going in search of the violent gangs, the high tech forces and the organized networks that are the new face of Britain's criminal underworld.
21st century prostitution in Britain has a nasty edge. The girls are getting younger.The prices for their trade lower.
An incredible 85% of the girls are foreigners.
It's an industry that's been taken over by brutal Albanian gangsters.
We'll be going undercover to find out how vicious the industry has become and how the Albanian gangs operates and I'll be following the horrific case of Elena, a 15 year old girl sex trafficked into Britain.
In my teenage years around Soho one remembers all these women in the doorways saying come on darling do you want to come in here, do you want to see a peep show. Now, it's become an industry. That's a very important word because to me industry means product, organization, profit on a mass scale. It's an industry one controlled though by the criminal underworld.
My investigation into sex trafficking gangs begins in Sheffield. Elena was a 15 year old Lithuanian girl who was sex trafficked into England after being enticed with a summer job as a waitress.
The head of South Yorkshire police's people trafficking unit, Detective Sargeant Alastair Duncan was brought in to investigate this shocking case.
"This is where the 15 year old victim was taken to when she arrived in Sheffield. She was taken up there and raped."
Detective constable Darren B. works with the victims of trafficking and he's asked us to keep his identity hidden. He told me the gangsters go to great lengths to obtain young women and in Elena's case this meant tricking her parents into signing documents allowing her to travel abroad alone.
"Because of her age she has to get permission from her parents to travel to the UK. Her parents sign these documents basically allowing her to travel un-accommodated. These are just some of the lengths they'll go to, these people, when recruiting victims. So it's quite sophisticated. They don't just drag people off the street."
In my experience and I have researched this as a reporter, as a correspondent, very few girls go and say "Uh I'd like to be a prostitute, can you help me?" You are in an Eastern European country, you get promised that you're gonna be taken to London, you'll work as a waitress, you'll work in a hair salon. It ends up being prostitution. That's the key point. They enter into a world that they never expected, never wanted, never dreamed and they are kept there with threats and force.
The men behind the trafficking of Elena were an Albanian gang. Shaban Maka and Xhevahir Pisha, both illegal immigrants.
We spoke to Mohamed Veliu, an Albanian journalist who spent years undercover to expose Albanian criminals.
He told me that the gangsters had tricked their way into this country and had made the UK their HQ by setting up hundreds of brothels right across the country.
"In past 10 years Britain has been a magnet for Albanian criminals. They came in the UK in 1998 when the conflict was in Kosovo. They claimed assylum and all that expertise and criminal activity, especially in prostitution, they did bring it to the UK."
Albanian pimps are sneaking into the UK because of the huge profits that can be made here. The price of buying sex in Britain is 2 or 3 times higher than in the rest of Europe. The Albanians have taken over the vice rackets with ease, thanks to their notoriety for extreme violence.
"Albanians won reputation as ruthless, as very violent. So that reputation helped them in the UK to open all the doors."
The UK sex industry is worth an annual 275 million pounds. Vice gangs are trafficking up to 8000 women into Britain every year. That's more than 20 girls every day.
I wanted to find out more about the 15 year old girl who'd ended up in Sheffield. I discovered that her ordeal began at Heathrowe airport the moment she stepped off the plane from Vilnius and was met by Pisha and Maka. They were planning to abuse her and sell her around the country.
"She was sold at that point in the region of 3 to 4000 pounds I believe. And the guy who bought her, an Albanian guy, took her to an address in London and within 24 hours of arriving in the UK - she was actually raped and beaten by this man. He explained to her that he now owned - this girl."
I got an insight into the horror that awaited Elena by speaking to another Eastern European woman called Anna who'd also been sex trafficked into the UK. "They told me you have to work because I paid the money for you. That's the way I found out why I'm here. One client came and chose me. I went into the room and after I go 2 minutes and asking a girl what should I do. I didn't know to do nothing, and she said do this, this. I go into the room and I saw the client naked and I started crying. The customer started shouting... you never did this job before, what the hell are you doing here, where's your pimp."
The gang relied on the fact that Anna would be to terrified to contact her parents for help.
"You got two types of treatment. We've got pimps who beat the girls, who put violence on them. On the other hand, some other pimps - they treat girls nicely, they buy them designer clothes, making them believe that the pimp's in love with her. They feel, well he loves me, he's treating me nicely so I'm going to work next day, I'm going to try my best, to make lots of money, we're going to buy a house, we're going to have a nice life and future. But that is not the case. All the money goes to the pimps, the girls and less."
Mohamed told us that the gangs often terrorize the girls and then show them an act of kindness making them easier to manipulate.
Documentary. Part 1.
http://youtu.be/JuWI7erUb1c