NINE major crime gangs are trafficking people into Scotland for the sex trade and forced labour, police have warned.

Chinese Triads and Albanian smugglers are among the groups to have been picked up on the radar of the elite Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) as it steps up its fight with the international underworld operating north of the Border.

Gangsters can make tens of thousands of pounds every year from every person they smuggle into the country illegally, especially in the highly lucrative and increasingly common brothels of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stephen Whitelock, the SCDEA’s head of intelligence, said: “We know there are Chinese and south-east Asian crime groups involved, Nigerians and gangs from eastern Europe, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Albania.

“They are all predominantly bringing in women to work in the Scottish sex industry.”

But as police revealed their most detailed intelligence yet about the scale of the trade, Scotland’s lead immigration official criticised slow progress in prosecuting human traffickers.

Phil Taylor, regional director of the UK Border Agency for Scotland and Northern Ireland, revealed four major investigations by his officers had failed to result in a single conviction.

He questioned whether Scotland’s justice system could move fast enough to deal with serious allegations made by people eager to leave the country.

Speaking at an Edinburgh conference on child trafficking yesterday, Mr Taylor said: “I think the ability of the criminal justice system in Scotland to pursue these cases with sufficient speed and vigour is in doubt.

“I know from my own experience we have conducted four major investigations into immigration offences which may or may not have involved trafficking but were large-scale organised operations involving illegal migration.

“The inability of the collective system to bring those cases to trial is a great worry to me and a matter of major concern. Foreign nationals who are in this category are not going to hang about for three years in order to give evidence against the traffickers.”

Earlier this year, The Herald revealed that Scotland’s first human trafficking prosecution was under way.
Human rights campaigners, women’s groups and politicians have previously attacked police and fiscals for failing to bring any prosecutions.

The unusually frank criticism from Mr Taylor is all the more damning because it comes from within the system. He wants to see a national task force on trafficking to include police and prosecutors.

“We have to find ways of being more robust, more flexible and more determined,” he added.


“I understand the prosecutors’ concerns about bringing new and novel cases before the courts in Scotland.


“The problem for me and the whole of the criminal justice system is that if you never take a case to trial you will never get a conviction.


“And it is always the case that there is a learning curve for the whole system to get to grips with new problems and new cases.”

His concerns immediately provoked a staunch defence of the Scottish system by the Crown Office.

A Crown office spokesman said: “We absolutely do not accept this criticism, which is ill-informed.

“The prosecution service in Scotland is committed to using all of our powers to combat people trafficking wherever it occurs and when there is sufficient available, credible and reliable evidence to do so.

“The Crown can only prosecute what is reported by law enforcement and when there is sufficient evidence.”

The spokesman said there had been a dearth of cases reported but stressed there were currently several investigations under way across Scotland. Fiscals have targeted individuals who they believe to be traffickers over lesser offences, including identity and prostitution-related crimes.

Police last night stressed that they know a lot about the sex industry -– but that their information is more limited on other types of people trafficking, including for forced labour and domestic servitude.

Glasgow detectives are about to begin leafleting large areas of the city centre and the southside giving residents advice on the tell-tale signs of trafficking for both sex and labour.

Mr Whitelock and Mr Taylor were both speaking at the conference which was organised by Tam Baillie, Scotland’s commissioner for children and young people.

There are few robust figures on child trafficking, although Mr Baillie earlier this year commissioned a report which suggested that between 80 and 249 children could have been victims.

Mr Whitelock cited official figures showing just five adults and one child had been confirmed as victims of trafficking in Scotland between April 2009 and July 2010. Around 70 people had been referred to police as potential victims in the same period.

But he said the problem was bigger than the figures showed: “I know from intelligence that that is not the true nature of what we are dealing with.”