Ross Kemp has revealed he sat in tears after interviewing a trafficker he described as “probably the worst man I ever met”. The encounter took place during filming for Sky One’s Ross Kemp: Extreme World, a documentary series that ran from 2011 to 2017.
Kemp, best known for playing EastEnders hardman Grant Mitchell before leaving the soap in 1999, built a career in documentary-making with hard-hitting subjects including Somali pirates, gang violence and the war in Afghanistan. Across six series, he investigated violence in oil-rich Venezuela, sectarian conflict in Lebanon, crack addiction in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, and Libya’s “migrant hell”.
Meeting Mr Khan in India
The 2013 interview took place in India with a trafficker named Mr Khan, who was alleged to have sold girls as young as 12. In his 2023 book, Take Nothing for Granted: Tales from an Unexpected Life, Kemp wrote: “I've been angry before. But this was different. I sat there and I knew without a doubt that the world would be a better place without this man in it.”
Kemp said the figure who stepped out from the treeline was slim and youthful, dressed casually in a baseball cap and wearing rings. He described how Mr Khan started by convincing girls from the village he would marry them, then took them to cities to sell them on. Seven years later, he claimed to have a network of 75 traffickers working under him.
Details of the interview
Despite more than 25 active investigations against him, Mr Khan had never been charged. When Kemp asked how many girls he had trafficked, he said three or four thousand. Kemp described how Mr Khan told him they would go to poor communities and look for “real beauties”, with girls auctioned to the highest bidder.
Mr Khan said the top price he had ever got was £8,500 and rejected the suggestion he had sold a nine-year-old, but acknowledged trafficking many 12-year-olds. He described how girls who tried to run away or “were trouble” would be killed and buried in the country, and said he bribed police to look the other way. When asked how many girls, he replied between four and five hundred.
Ending the interview
Kemp noted that Mr Khan kept his gaze on the floor throughout, using his cap to conceal his face, and that to him the children were simply “numbers” or “merchandise”. When Kemp pressed him on whether he planned to carry on killing, Mr Khan said: “If I'm having problems, I'll have to carry on killing.” A tear rolled down his cheek.
Kemp said: “I could just about take everything up until that point, but I couldn't take his self-pity. I told the fixer to get him out of my sight.” It was one of the rare occasions he terminated an interview early, leaving his translator visibly shaken as she wept while relaying what she heard. Kemp added: “Afterwards, we both sat in tears.”
