Sex gang boss gets ten years
The boss of a sex trafficking outfit, which forced teenagers from eastern Europe to work as prostitutes in the UK, has been imprisoned for 10 years.
Luan Plakici, an Albanian-born former asylum seeker, smuggled scores of young women, many teenagers, into Britain with promises of jobs working in bars or restaurants.
Mr Plakici arranged travel arrangements for the women but forced them to work in brothels to pay off their “unending” debt, violently beating them if they refused.
After he gained a British passport, he travelled across Eastern Europe looking for “poor, naive and gullible” women to work in his £1m sex slave business.
Police say the case is one of the biggest and most significant of its kind in Britain to date.
Through his illegal work, Mr Plakici’s acquired a Ferrari Spider and BMW convertible, had clothes by Gucci, Armani and Versace, and held £204,000 in bank accounts.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Holmes, who headed the investigation, said of the twenty-six year old:
“He was merciless in his exploitation of women for financial gain, terrifying his victims by beating and threatening to kill them if they did not comply with his demands.”
At London’s Wood Green Crown Court yesterday, Mr Plakici was convicted of 15 offences including kidnap, incitement to rape and helping illegal immigrants into Britain.
