maxim usa atlanta 2011
TRANSCRIPT
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
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
twitter@slavedetective
slavedetective.wordpress.com