Police today revealed how they snared an organised crime group who were trafficking people around Tayside for prostitution.
Jose Barbosa pocketed more than £150,000 from the scheme, which involved recruiting women from London and bringing them up to Scotland to work from nine separate flats, including Malcolm Street, Dundee, and Atholl Street, Perth.
The father-of-two was jailed for three years in October and his partner Ana Calder was due to be sentenced yesterday but it was deferred.
Barbosa used an alias, a Spanish ID card and a fake employers’ letter to rent out properties, which he would then sub-let to the prostitutes.
Barbosa and Calder were investigated as part of Operation Wolfberry and then detained by police on May 15 at their home in Kirkcaldy while their flats around Scotland were raided by more than 60 officers.
Detective Inspector Paul Grainger, of the Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, revealed how Barbosa, originally from Brazil, operated his illegal business.
He said: “People were only staying in these flats for a week or two and then Barbosa was moving them around.
“Some were from Brazil and some from Europe — mainly Spain and Portugal. But most had a Brazilian or Mediterranean background.
“A lot of the people recruited we think were already in the United Kingdom, maybe working in London and then being approached by Calder and Barbosa.
“Then they were trafficked into Scotland and around the country.
“To get clients, they used websites that seem to host sex industry activity.”
To build up enough evidence against Barbosa, undercover officers were deployed in Dundee and elsewhere, as well as intense behind-the-scenes work in checking his finances. DI Grainger said: “Various tactics were employed to gather evidence including surveillance, deployment of undercover officers and financial inquiry.
“Within the OCCTU we had a dedicated team that took this on as well as Police Scotland’s local divisions where the activity was happening, the Police Scotland Human Trafficking Team, the Internet Investigation Unit, Borders Policing Command and the Financial Investigation Team.
“Our main day of action was on May 15. On that day, we visited nine flats throughout the central belt of Scotland, from Dundee all the way to Dumfries.
“We engaged with all the people in those flats who were victims of trafficking.
“On the same day we attended a flat in Kirkcaldy where Barbosa and Calder had been living.
“They were detained and interviewed about their activity.
“There was a real level of organisation with what they were doing. There is no doubt that trafficking is an extremely serious crime where victims suffer real harm and Calder and Barbosa were both fully engaged in this crime.”
One of the police’s newest focuses was to support those who had been victims of crime.
DI Grainger added: “We were very victim focused on that day of action when we went into all these different premises.
“We can’t force people to engage with us but we offered all of them support mainly through the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA).
“Two took that offer of support, others chose not to.
“With the whole nature of human trafficking, victims don’t always feel they’re being controlled or coerced through economic means or otherwise.
“That’s the challenge police have to overcome to make them realise they have been victims of trafficking.”
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