Trafficking victim was forced into prostitution (From This Is Local London)

Trafficking victim was forced into prostitution

3:33pm Tuesday 29th January 2008 in

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A BULGARIAN man who threatened to break the legs of the family of a woman unless she agreed to work as a prostitute has been found guilty of human trafficking, together with his woman accomplice.

The case was the first conviction secured by the Metropolitan Police's Human Trafficking Team (HTT), who were called in by Enfield police officers after they assisted a woman believed to have been trafficked into the United Kingdom for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

Saisho Yankov, 41, of Forest House Hostel, Green Lanes, Palmers Green, was convicted at Wood Green Crown Court on Monday of trafficking into the UK, trafficking within the UK and controlling prostitution.

He will be sentenced on February 15, along with Asie Isufova, 25, of Levski, Bulgaria. She was found guilty of trafficking within the UK and controlling prostitution.

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Downing, from the Met's Operation Maxim, said: "This will hopefully send a powerful message to those involved in trafficking that both the police and the courts are taking this extremely seriously."

The victim, who was 31 at the time, knew Yankov and Isufova in Bulgaria and arranged for them to pay for her travel to the UK on the premise she would pay them back once finding employment in Britain.

In March last year, the three arrived in London and went to the Forest House Hostel where Yankov took the victim's ID card.

Yankov and Isufova kept the victim in the hostel and after five days she was told that the only work available was prostitution.

When she refused, Yankov told her he was part of the Bulgarian Mafia, threatened her family at home and told her she had to work for two years as a prostitute to pay off her £2,000 travel costs.

She was taken to a brothel in Haringey, then to a second brothel in central London after a failed escape.

Her earnings each day were given to the brothel's madam and Yankov.

She managed to escape when she was taken to a client's house and went to a cafe where two women, one of them Bulgarian, noticed her crying.

She was taken to a police station the next day, and on March 30 of last year, officers attended Forest House Hostel, arrested Yankov and recovered the victim's ID card. A month later Isufova was arrested after returning to the hostel.

Bulgarian police were called in during the run-up to the trial to deal with repeated threats made to the victim's family in Bulgaria, trying to force her not to give evidence.