Detectives spent nine months investigating after the cash was found in a safe depository in Hampstead, north London, last year during Operation Rize, a project designed to disrupt organised crime and open more than 3, storage boxes left in banks and lock-ups across London. The owner of the box, a woman from south-east Asia, was already known to officers from the Metropolitan police's clubs and vice unit, but until the discovery of the money detectives had failed to find any evidence that she was involved in sex trafficking.
She was arrested and questioned last summer but said the money in the box was cash she had accumulated from incapacity benefits. The woman was bailed and officers began an undercover operation, which led them to the criminals.
The organised crime gang was found to be trafficking women from south-east Asia for forced prostitution. Detectives raided five brothels yesterday in Camden, Finchley and Harrow, north London, as well as at Hemel Hempstead and St Albans, Hertfordshire, and at five home and businesses addresses. Five women and seven men were arrested and questioned on suspicion of trafficking, controlling prostitution for gain, money laundering and possession of a stun gun.
The inquiry has revealed just how lucrative trafficking women for prostitution is for organised criminals. Yesterday, at a brothel in Camden, officers found a woman being forced to live in a dank three-bedroom flat where she was in effect imprisoned. The room where the victim was made to work as a prostitute was squalid and had two small beds covered in dirty quilts and not much else, said police at the scene. The five women were taken yesterday to a reception centre where specialists, doctors and sexual offences officers talked to them.
Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, head of the Met's clubs and vice unit, said the experience of the women had been "horrendous". The investigation is one of more than 1, inquiries pursued after Operation Rize, in which 3, safety deposit boxes were opened last summer. Topics Prostitution. Crime news. Reuse this content. Most popular.
