The Albanian sex slave trade

The face of modern sex slavery is deceptively decorous. Behind a darkened doorway on Royal College Street in Camden Town, 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 Camden Town brothel has made use of young women caught up in a crime phenomenon that shames London. They are operated by gangsters who buy and sell women like chattels, often beating or blackmailing them into submission.

It may seem incredible that, in the great city where 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. Yet an Evening Standard investigation has uncovered a criminal culture that thrives on human bondage, where unseen and unspeakable cruelty mocks the tenets of civilised life.

At its heart are men from the clans of Albania, criminals 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 far beyond the well-known, sleazy recesses of Soho and into favoured residential areas across London.

It began with the Kosovo emergency in 1999. As Britain and its Nato partners went to war with Serbia to save Kosovar Albanians from repression and atrocity, thousands poured into Britain seeking asylum. Among them were Albanians who, in truth, had nothing to fear from the regime in Belgrade across the Yugoslav border but who saw a lucrative opportunity.

They masqueraded as victims of the Kosovo crisis to gain entry to Britain and, once here, they began to organise. 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. As ethnic Albanian communities formed in east and south-east London, the northern suburbs and Luton, 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.

They may have volunteered for a life of prostitution in the West, they may have been tricked into thinking they were heading for a job, marriage or a working visa. Often, they have simply been kidnapped.

Children's charity Terre des Hommes told an international conference in Rome last week 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, told the conference that 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.

Evening Standard's investigation disclosed a disturbing recent case in which a Romanian child was sold into sex slavery in London.

Elena's story is shocking, not least for the way it ends. She was a pretty 12-year-old schoolgirl in the southwest 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 Bexley 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 of the London Borough of Bexley, and even the police.

He became her pimp and, according to a source involved in her case, she is currently working for him as a prostitute.

When coercion and threats fail, the ploy of rescue and emotional attachment is used by the Albanian pimps to control their valuable merchandise. They have, after all, made a substantial investment in their "property".

A member of the Albanian community in London, 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 currently 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 [around £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, has watched the growth of the Albanian gangs with dismay. He says current laws and soft sentencing offer no deterrent, adding: "We are creating a market place where people are being exploited. People are effectively condoning a sort of slavery.

"It is an indictment on this country that we do not pay much attention to a crime where humans are being controlled through force."

The milieu in which the latter-day slavers operate is, for the most part, closed. They do their deals in places where the only language is Albanian, cafes like the Shpati in Barking or the Dardania in Hornsey. Unknown to the owners of these establishments, bargains are struck and girls are traded.

It is now believed that Albanian criminals control great swathes of London's immensely rich vice industry. Most of the women currently working as prostitutes - an estimated 75 per cent - come from eastern Europe. But it is not known how many have been trafficked and sold. The women operated by Albanian pimps work in massage parlours and flats. They do not walk the streets.

Recent reports suggested the Albanians have made little impact outside Soho. This is not the case. Our investigation revealed they are concentrating on quiet and often residential areas of London, where hundreds of establishments owned by British individuals are located. The influx of young and often very attractive girls into these brothels has expanded the clientele and created a rich seam of criminal activity.

The lesson of countries like Italy, Germany and Belgium is that the hidden world of Albanian gangsterism can explode into highly visible violence. In Britain, an incident in which a 27-year-old Albanian man was murdered sounded a loud warning. According to an informed source, the killer was a pimp called Arben Pali who operated three girls. One girl, a teenager, escaped and sought refuge with another member of the Albanian community in Luton. Pali, 24, snatched back the girl and punished her by slicing off the little finger of her left hand. The incident caused outrage and led to a brawl, in which Pali stabbed his innocent victim through the heart with a screwdriver. He is currently on the run.

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 who had been sold into sex slavery, brought to London and forced into prostitution. The girl, whose working name was Lisa, 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 London 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 at a house in Harlesden. 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 a brothel at Upton Park. 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 in Essex. 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 currently in care.

It might be thought that such a case would spell the end of the First Class Sauna. Not a bit of it. 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 of her time, spent in a tiny room where a horizontal mirror is fastened to the wall alongside the bed. 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, there may be just one or two. 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? Do they care?

One thing is certain: the sex slavers are not concerned, either for the women and children they exploit, or the law. Chief Superintendent Humphrey believes only tougher jail sentences will deter them. 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 highprofit, men like Bledi are unlikely to abandon it.