Posted on 07/17/2002 12:16:26 PM PDT by DTA
Yorkshire Post
July 17, 2002
B>Revealed: Scandal of the teenage sex slaves
Albanian criminals in Britain are trading girls as sex slaves for the price of a second-hand car.
Keith Dovkants investigates.
The face of modern sex slavery is deceptively
decorous. Behind a darkened doorway visitors are
handed a playing card – the Jack of Hearts – which, in
a quaint and almost courtly ritual, is presented
without comment to the girl of choice. There is
nothing to suggest that the girl is anything but a
willing player in the encounter that follows. But,
again, this may be a deception.
This brothel in Camden Town in north London has made
use of young women caught up in a crime phenomenon
that shames us. It may seem incredible that, in the
great city where Hull's William Wilberforce campaigned
– in the democracy that led the world in outlawing
slavery – human beings are traded now for the price of
a second-hand car.
At its heart are Albanians who have exploited the
tragic misery of their own people to gain sanctuary in
Britain. They have created an entire underworld
regime, financed by the rich pickings of prostitution,
and their vice network is spreading fast.
It began with the Kosovo emergency in 1999 when
thousands of Kosovar Albanians poured into Britain
seeking asylum. Among them were Albanians who
masqueraded as victims to gain entry. Pre-eminent
among them were men from the clans based in the
northern cities of Tropoja and Shkodra – areas of
Albania where banditry has flourished for centuries.
These men formed a nexus of pimps, traffickers and
enforcers.
Principal among them is a former Albanian policeman
who has been granted asylum here and who lives in east
London. His name cannot be revealed for legal reasons
but he is known widely in ethnic Albanian circles as a
wealthy and powerful figure. This man, Bledi – not his
real name – has contacts across Europe reaching into
the ranks of the Mafia groups that control crime in
the former Soviet countries, including Russia.
Through these contacts, Bledi purchases women. They
may come from the impoverished cities of Russia, the
Baltic states, Romania, Moldova or the Balkans. Often,
they have simply been kidnapped. Children's charity
Terre des Hommes says that more than 6,000 minors aged
between 12 and 16 are smuggled out of eastern Europe
to work as prostitutes, drug traffickers and beggars
every year.
Barbara Limanowska, author of a Unicef report on the
trafficking of women and children, says at least 10 to
30 per cent of all eastern European sex workers are
minors. It is thought that up to 80 per cent of
victims from Albania are girls under 18. While a
number of European countries have made considerable
strides in their attempts to tackle the problem, she
said, Britain has been slow to act.
Elena's story is shocking, not least for the way it
ends. She was a pretty 12-year-old schoolgirl in the
south-west Romanian town of Targa Jiu – a dismal
former mining town with a collapsed local economy. Her
mother left home and her father, a chronic alcoholic,
did his best to bring up Elena and her elder brother,
But the father died suddenly, leaving the children
alone.
They were destitute and the boy fell in with criminals
who put him in touch with the Mafia.
Elena doesn't know the details of the deal but she is
convinced her brother sold her to the gangsters. She
was transported across Europe to Croatia and put to
work as a child prostitute in an Adriatic resort.
Then, when she was 15, she was smuggled into Britain
and sold to an Albanian couple living in south-east
London. She believes they paid $8,000 for her – about
£5,000 – and she was immediately put to work.
Elena said: "They made me do four hours at a massage
parlour then the rest of the time I saw men at their
flat. They kept the money and threatened me with a
gun." She tried to run away; they found her, dragged
her back to the flat and beat her up. She finally
managed to escape and alerted the police to her
plight. She was immediately taken into care by social
services, given new clothes and a safe home.
It might have ended there. But what happened next has
probably sealed Elena's fate.
She was found by a young Albanian man who befriended
her. He said he liked her and wanted to rescue her.
For this girl, who had never known love – whose human
contacts had been with men who abused her for money –
this was something for which she had yearned. She ran
away with the young Albanian and is now beyond the
reach of the carers and even the police.
He became her pimp and, according to a source involved
in her case, she is working for him as a prostitute.
A member of the Albanian community, who has witnessed
first-hand the bartering and commercial disposition of
women, provided a stark description of the activities
of Bledi and others. This man is living in a safe
house in fear of his life.
He said: "These men are exceptionally dangerous. They
don't hesitate to resort to violence if they believe
their business or personal liberty is in jeopardy.
Bledi is utterly ruthless. I was present at a
negotiation in which he was trying to sell two Russian
girls for £6,500 each. They had been provided with
Greek passports and were being offered to pimps in
London.
"Bledi and his associates say they smuggle in two
girls every 10 days. They are usually sold for $10,000
each (about £6,000), depending on how attractive and
potentially lucrative they are."
The pimps and brothel owners can recoup anything up to
£1,000 a day from their investment, less what they
give the women. Often, this is very little. While many
of the girls are sold to organised gangs, others are
sold to individuals.
According to the source, there is now a pattern of
pimping on a wide scale in some ethnic Albanian
communities: "If a man can afford to buy one, two or
three girls, why should he work? That is the attitude
among a number of people from the Shkodra and Tropoja
clans. Often they will force their own girlfriends
into prostitution."
The attraction of prostitution, apart from the
financial rewards, is that it carries minimum risk.
The only charge police can bring against a pimp is
that of living off immoral earnings. The maximum
sentence, rarely imposed, is two years imprisonment.
Chief Superintendent Simon Humphrey, head of Scotland
Yard's vice squad, says: "We are creating a market
place where people are being exploited. People are
effectively condoning a sort of slavery."
Police have tried to tackle the menace of the Albanian
gangs, and they have had some success. The brothel in
Camden Town, First Class Sauna and Massage, was the
scene of a rescue in which police became involved. It
concerned a 15-year-old girl whose working name was
Lisa. She had been abused by her father at home in
Romania. When she tried to escape she was sold to a
gangster, who took her to Macedonia.
She was sold again to an Albanian who passed her to
pimps in Italy. At 15 she had endured an entire
childhood of brutality and abuse, then a young
Albanian man befriended her. He told her she should
run away with him and he arranged for her to travel to
Britain on false documents. Lisa learned later that
this man, whom she took to be her saviour, had paid
4,000 Deutschmarks (about £1,300) for her.
He raped her and forced her to work in brothels. She
worked until 7am, slept for a few hours, and was then
driven on another circuit of the sauna and massage
parlours. She charged £30 for oral sex and £50 for
more extensive activities. She handed all the money to
the pimp, who lived a life of considerable luxury.
Lisa's misery was boundless but – even in this grim
trade, it seems – there is humanity.
Lisa came to the attention of Tracey Spencer,
part-owner of another brothel. When Ms Spencer learned
Lisa was only 15 she arranged to collect her at the
Camden Town brothel and took her to a safe house. Then
she called in the police. Lisa's pimp was arrested and
later found guilty of raping her and living off
immoral earnings. Lisa is now in care.
It's did not spell the end of the First Class Sauna.
Every evening, after 8pm, up to 10 girls are paraded
in a basement room for clients. Bianca, an
exceptionally pretty girl who looked about 18, told me
she was from Transylvania. "You know Dracula?" she
laughed. "It's me."
Bianca charges £80 for a half hour, an hour is £130.
"We can do whatever you like," she said. "If you want,
we can bring in one of the other girls." The number of
clients varies. One night she had nine. She refuses to
talk about the Albanians and became nervous and upset
at my questions. She lowered her voice: "There are
three very big security men nearby", she said.
My inquiries revealed that the First Class Sauna is a
place where the Albanian gangsters like to place their
girls. The establishment has a regular clientele among
whom many are middle-class, educated, professional
men.
Do these individuals know anything of the human
tragedies that may lie behind the forced smiles that
greet them in that basement? Anti-slavery campaigners
say that, if confiscation of assets makes sense for
those who deal in drugs, why shouldn't this apply to
those who deal in people?
While sex slavery continues to be low-risk and
high-profit, men like Bledi are unlikely to abandon
it.
There was a happier time when an innocent, young girl could get on a boat and come to this country and not fall prey to such evil men.
Men who live off women are pansies and I despise them.
The ones who still have values are at home with their families, watching tv, at work, playing golf, shopping for groceries, fixing the house, working on a project, etc., etc., etc.
It appears the rest are in massage parlors, brothels, doing porn on the internet, doing each other, abducting, raping and murdering little girls and boys.
Did I miss something?
Women still feel very threatened by porn and are humiliated and angry when their men visit prostitutes.
Well, I need a man to calm me down before I head out the door with an axe and a rope. Make that a virtual axe and a virtual rope.
How's about one of us Real Men fix you a Bailey's and Coffee to calm your nerves and leave you a .45 as a 'good luck charm' while while we're out looking for these bastards.
I just got my boots re-soled and I've been looking for someone's face to try 'em out on.
Nauseated bump
One of PJ O'Rourke's books has a good chapter about the Albanian mindset.
I don't know anything about this stuff but you might check this thread - especially post #28.
Thanks for pointing out another example of it.
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