A heartless brothel boss who trafficked two women from Thailand to Scotland and forced them into prostitution in Aberdeen and Inverness has been jailed for nine years.
Mananchaya Wanitthanawet, 40, brought the Thai nationals to the UK on the promise of lucrative massage work.
However, the dream they were sold turned out to be a nightmare as the vulnerable women in their 20s were ordered into sex work to pay off £90,000 debts they were told they had accrued.
Wanitthanawet created online adverts for the sex work and prostitution took place at venues in Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness and Newcastle.
Wanitthanawet’s boyfriend and client, 30-year-old analyst Cameron Wilson, laundered dirty money in his bank accounts and transferred more than £136,000 in prostitution earnings.
Judge Lord Scott said: “What you put them through was dehumanising.
“It deprived them of the ability to act as they wished. They were valued only as a source of profit.”
Wanitthanawet, who could have faced a life sentence, was given a total jail term of nine years while Wilson was imprisoned for 21 months.
Neither showed any emotion as they were led from the dock in handcuffs.
A Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order was also imposed on Wanitthanawet for five years.
Sick scheme
The pair, of Yeovil, Somerset, had stood trial in Dundee, with a jury hearing often harrowing evidence about the cruelty inflicted on their victims.
Wanitthanawet, known as “Nuch”, was guilty of trafficking two Thai women to the UK between 2019 and 2022 and forcing them to work seven days a week as prostitutes to pay-off what she said were £90,000 debts.
Her partner Wilson was guilty of money laundering and living on the earnings of prostitution, using bank accounts to conceal and transfer more than £136,000.
He was cleared of trafficking charges.
The court heard how the women were lured to the UK with the promise of lucrative massage work but were used as prostitutes, seeing as many as 15 men per day in Airbnb properties in Dundee and other Scottish cities.
Some of the men with whom they were forced into sex were described as “sadistic and violent”.
After Wanitthanawet arranged their arrival from Thailand, they had been provided with costumes, underwear, condoms and birth control.
Their availability as sex workers was advertised online and they would make hundreds of pounds per day with half going directly Wanitthanawet and the rest to service their debt.
Days off were only given when they were on their period and they got £30 to spend on food per week.
Eventually one of the pair fled to Aberdeen and police were contacted.
Subsequent investigations showed how Wanitthanawet and Wilson’s scheme had operated.
Deportation ‘inevitable’
Wanitthanawet told the trial she had also come to the UK in 2019, illegally, to perform “happy ending” massage work – masturbating men to pay off her own debts accrued in Thailand.
She met Wilson as a client in Dundee before moving in with him and using his bank accounts.
Wilson, then a delivery driver receiving Universal Credit, had been receiving regular large sums of cash in his accounts.
Both accused were also cleared of two separate charges relating to prostitution and brothels.
Solicitor advocate Kris Gilmartin, for Wanitthanawet, said his client obtained a business and economics degree in Thailand, before moving to the UK.
Mr Gilmartin said: “She became aware of a social media group that arranged for work whilst in the UK.
“She maintained throughout that she was not the victim of human trafficking herself.
“She was willingly involved in the sex trade.
“She accepted in the (social work) reports that she did exploit the complainers.
“It is inevitable that deportation will follow and she will return to Thailand and will effectively have to start again.”
Defence counsel Iain Paterson KC said Wilson was “relatively naive” and had “turned a blind eye” to the operation.
The report prepared on his behalf suggested he would be suitable for unpaid work but this was accepted as being unrealistic.
‘Exploitation of two vulnerable women’
Judge Scott added: “In the reports, you have both downplayed and minimised your knowledge and involvement in what was an extremely and serious organised criminal enterprise.”
He told Wilson: “This operation worked more smoothly as a result of your role.”
Addressing Wanitthanawet, the judge added: “The jury rejected your account of helping your two victims.
“You are clearly an intelligent person as evident by your degree in business and economics.
“Unfortunately, you have chosen to use it in the exploitation of two vulnerable young women who found themselves trapped in a foreign country and thousands of miles from their families.”
The Crown will seek to claw back the pair’s profits through a proceeds of crime action.