Over the past four years, Police Scotland has targeted human slavery gangs exploiting both children and adults for profit. In the last seven years, 342 Vietnamese children have been trafficked to Scotland, with 31 suffering sexual exploitation.
Jailing of a drug-forcing trafficker
Last month, a man aged 20, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed for six years and nine months at the High Court in Glasgow for forcing a boy of 14 to sell drugs. He had previously admitted the offence under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act at the High Court in Glasgow in July.
He had sent the boy to drug dens in Glasgow and Paisley, where the boy handed out “testers” to addicts and was shown how to bag up “crack”. The boy’s exploitation came to light when his school raised concerns about repeated absences. The man had met the boy in St Enoch Centre during the school summer holidays and asked if he “wanted to start making money”.
68 years for Romanian gang
Last October, six men were jailed for a total of 68 years for various offences, including one under the Human Trafficking Act. Mircea Cumpanasoiu, 37, Christian Urlateanu, 41, Alexandra Bugonea, 35, Remus Stan, 35, and Cataline Dobre, 45, were convicted following a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Their victims included a woman trafficked into prostitution, while another was gang raped by three of the predators. The Romanian gang, based in Dundee, left their prey hooked on crack, leading them to be blackmailed into sex. Ringleader Cumpanasoiu was jailed for 20 years, Urlateanu for 18, Bugonea for eight, while Dobre got 10 years and Stan got 12 years. One woman was forced to stay in a tree because she was not earning enough money from selling her body.
Proceeds of crime and Chinese gangs
In May last year, a police proceeds of crime investigation revealed how convicted sex trafficker Jagpal Singh, 55 – who duped Chinese women into travelling to Scotland – had made more than £2.6million from the trade in human flesh. He was already serving a 10-year jail term imposed in 2022.
Singh, his partner Donglin Zhang, 51, and Albanian Vlassis Ntaoulias, 35, had set up a network of brothels. A fourth, Boonsong Wannas, 62, helped bring women from Asia. In a separate case two years ago, a Chinese crime gang that trafficked women and forced them to work in brothels were found to have made £5million.
Xiao Min, 39, Qin Huang, 31, and Guolei Huang, 35, were jailed for a total of 20 years and nine months. Qin managed the trafficked women and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Guolei, who was jailed for four years and three months, was a “minder”. Xiao, the “mastermind”, was sentenced to eight years and nine months. Mananchaya Wanitthanawet, 44, who operated brothels from Airbnb, was jailed for nine years.
