Organised crime groups flooding Scotland with Brazilian prostitutes

Published on Saturday 5 December 2009 18:52

UP TO one in four prostitutes working off-street in Scotland is from South America.

Senior police sources say that in just two years they have seen a "several hundreds per cent" increase in the number of sex workers who are either from Brazil or claim to be.

They believe many of the women have been trafficked into the country by organised crime groups.

The new trade comes in direct response to rising punter demand in Scotland for women who are "dusky, dark types".

A senor detective said: "We think at least one in five – perhaps as many as one in four – prostitutes working off-street in Scotland is now from South America."

Scotland has become the latest destination for Brazilian mafias shipping women from the country's notorious sex industry to Europe. Brazilian newspapers last month accused crime groups of killing 10 women in Europe so far this year.

Earlier this year, the US State Department claimed that between 250,000 and 400,000 children were being sexually exploited in Brazil, where prostitution, as long as it does not involve pimping, is legal and thriving, thanks to both local trade and growing numbers of European and American sex tourists.

The Americans said a "large number" of women and children, many from Goias – a poor state in the interior about the size of Scotland – were being trafficked to Europe for sexual exploitation.

Police officers say some Scottish men - desensitised to prostitution by visits to foreign cities like Amsterdam and Prague, where the industry is tolerated - have become fixated with a completely inaccurate fantasy of Brazilian women as willing and happy prostitutes.

"They think of Brazil and they think of carnivals and play. There is a huge buy-in to that," said the detective.

It has been estimated that there are some 700 trafficked women – from all countries – working in Scotland's vice market at any one time. Many of the women found in recent brothel raids have been from China and south-east Asia.

In September, a sheriff ordered three Brazilians – two women and a man – to be deported after they were found running a brothel in East Kilbride.