maxim usa atlanta 2011

Joint-Agency Task Force

Targeting Organised Immigration Crime in London

Roddy Llewellyn Detective Sergeant (Ret) SCD6 Economic & Specialist Crime Unit

Metropolitan Police Service

Operation MAXIM

Not in Georgia:

Combating Human Sex

Trafficking

The Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard

Meets the State of Georgia 31st October 2011

The Metropolitan Police Force was

established in the year 1829 when

Sir Robert Peel was Home Secretary

In 1829 Sir Richard Mayne wrote:

"The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed…

…The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity,

and the absence of crime, will alone prove

whether those efforts have been successful and

whether the objects for which the police were appointed

have been attained."

London has

12 million

people

Policed by

31,000

police

officers

31,304 Police Officers

4,178 Police Community Support Officers 2,377 Special Constables 1,317 MVP volunteers

In February 2008 the Metropolitan Police Service employed:

Mission, Vision and Values

Make London a safer place to live, work and visit

To make London

the safest major

city in the world

MPS VALUES • Treat everyone fairly

• To be open and honest

• To work in partnership

• To change to improve

Perceived roles

Police roles in London

SCD9 Human Exploitation Unit

• The new command comprises:

• The Clubs and Vice unit

• The Human Trafficking Team

• Operation Maxim, organised immigration crime

counterfeit immigration documentation

• Operation Swale, A Joint Police and Boraders Agency

unit, exploiting migrants to the UK,.

Smuggling or Trafficking ?

Human Smuggling

• Illegal entry of a person

• Relationship ends at the border

• Transaction is made for the smuggling service

• Person is free to leave

Human Trafficking Team

(HTT) • Investigation of THB allegations affecting

the MPS - Targeting organised criminal

networks

• Reactive/Proactive

• 24 hour advice to BOCU‟s –Golden Hour

• On-going advice thro‟ to prosecution

• Awareness raising & usable „tool kits‟

Human Trafficking Team

• Working with partners

• Victim focused investigations

• Liaison with NGO’s, expert CPS

Prosecution Council, and

Foreign Law Enforcement

Useful Legislation

Sexual Offences Act 2003

• Can be trafficked into, within and out of the UK for sexual exploitation

Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004

• Slavery & Forced labour

• Maximum sentence – 14 years on indictment for all the above

So what does this all mean? • Recruitment of an, often vulnerable young

woman

• False hopes of opportunities; a job; a better life

• Often to support family in poor country

• Accompanied or met at destination

• ID documents seized by trafficker

• Sold on immediately

• Raped

• Re-sold ad infinitum – then what happens?

What do you do to help them?

• Communication

• Trust

• Support

How will a victim come to notice?

• At a Police Station

• May be approached directly

• May be called to disturbance/assault

• May be a „shoplifter‟

• Injured – in hospital

• Call to an Embassy

• Call by immigration solicitor

• Visit at brothel premises

Victims – the issues

• Language and understanding

• Trauma v recollection of details

• Drug/alcohol abuse –forced?

• Medical / Evidential needs

• Insecurity & fear of reprisals

• Dependants – in home country?

• Fear of authority/immigration status

Victim Support

• Prosecution - ideal outcome but not

always the case

• Once identified victims need support,

whether or not they are willing to make

a statement.

• UKHTC, POPPY, Salvation Army

Havens.

CONTINUED SUPPORT

• 156 VICTIMS RESCUED advice to 295 other trafficking cases.

• 71 SUSPECTS CHARGED sentenced to a total of 225yrs

• 28 Organised criminal Networks disrupted

• 26% of all criminal convictions in UK last 6yrs.

• FIREARMS RECOVERED & ASSETS SEIZED £2Million

• FEELING OF WELL BEING EXPRESSED BY VICTIM-

EMPOWERMENT

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

CONFERENCE 2009 AT NSY

Case Study

Yankov & Isufova

Contacts

Human Trafficking Team

http://www.met.police.uk/SCD9

Andy.j.desmond@met.police.uk

ANY QUESTIONS?

They told me they would cut me into pieces

and send me back like that.

Every single day I heard the threat “I’ll kill

you bitch”

• “I feel like they‟ve taken my smile and I can never have it back." Lithuanian woman trafficked to London.

• Where victims are bought and sold in the UK,

• prices range from £500 to £8000, with the available information suggesting an average of between

• £2000 and £3000. A trafficker controlling a victim working in an off-street brothel is likely to make in the region of £1000 per week.

“It comes every time that I close my eyes…

when I testified against my

traffickers…and when I am at home…always

in my dreams. I see myself

still being taken to clients.” ………………

“The girls I’ve met … some of them don’t even have a clue what they’re doing, why

they came … some of them know why they’re coming … right, some of them knew that they were going to work as

prostitutes but they didn’t know they were going to be controlled by Albanians to

start with, or some of them they thought they were going to work for themselves as

prostitutes”.

Female co-trafficker.

“I was locked in the basement with my friend.

We were only free to work,

and when the boss was drunk he would rape

me.”

“I wasn‟t even permitted to sleep. I could eat, but only if very fast, just for a few minutes. I had no right to sleep. If I decided to go to bed, he would beat me, and throw me out onto the street.”

Trafficked Victim…

“When I went into prostitution, in my eyes

it is not illegal. I don‟t do nothing

wrong, I don‟t steal from anybody and

obviously I don‟t hurt any body … It

was more like a business … it wasn‟t a

crime”.

Lithuanian trafficker.

“I wanted to run but I was in a foreign

country. Where would I go? Who would

believe me?”

Lithuanian victim.

“The men controlling them, they

would say to the girls whoever,

moves to another place or goes to

the police station, then they or a

member of their family would be

dead”.

Albanian trafficker

“I didn‟t buy her, she was

given to me.”

Convicted trafficker

“The girls working at my Sauna wore

ordinary clothes.”

DETECTIVE SERGEANT RODDY LLEWELLYN

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