Brothel madam who trafficked women into Scotland jailed for 27 months

Huang was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court. Picture: John Devlin

Yen Huang lured her victims from London and Malaysia to work in the sex industry in flats in Perth and Dundee.

Huang, 62, claimed she was a simple cleaner.

But she was unmasked after staff in a bank in Dundee contacted police with "concerns" about a 48-year-old woman they had seen her with.

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Police, who suspected the woman with Huang was a victim of human trafficking, launched a surveillance operation.

They searched the victim's flat, finding her clad only in a kimono, with a male customer who said he had visited the flat for sexual services after seeing an advert on the internet.

The woman said she had been visiting London and missed her flight home when she was approached in a casino by Huang , who said she could stay rent-free in Dundee.

Dundee Sheriff Court was told that the raid, on November 14, 2018, on a flat near the city's bus station, also found used condoms, oils and towels.

The court was told the woman was now at a centre in England, waiting to be returned to her own country.

Three weeks later, officers acting on a tip-off rescued Huang's second victim, a woman from Malaysia, from a flat in Melville Street, Perth, where she was performing massage, oral sex and masturbation for money. She told officers she had been put in contact by friends with Huang, who told her she would take half her earnings from sexual services.

Prosecutor Nicola Gillespie told the court: "She was not happy about this but agreed to try.

"She was told not to bring any items of clothing as she would be moving around a lot."

The woman complained to Huang about the number of men she was having to perform sex services on, but was "instructed by Huang to continue".

Ms Gillespie said that during the raid, the woman phoned Huang, who told her to delete all her messages and never contact her again.

Police checked bank accounts linked to the sex business and found one in the name of Huang, with an address in St Mungo Place, Glasgow, and Huang was arrested.

Huang, who had five aliases, told police: "I don't do bad things to anyone."

But she eventually abandoned her claims to have been just a cleaner with "no connection" to human trafficking or prostitution, and admitted she had recruited the woman, enticed her to come to Scotland for prostitution, instructed her to carry out sexual acts, and advertised her services.

She finally claimed she herself was victim of human trafficking and had been brought to the UK in a boat by "Snakehead".

Huang, of Gellatly Street, Dundee, appeared for sentence after pleading guilty on indictment last month to trafficking both women for the purposes of exercising control, direction or influence over prostitution.

The court heard Huang had arrived in the UK in 1996 "in search of a better life".

She had applied for asylum, been turned down in 2015, and had gone underground while awaiting deportation, under an order to sign on every 12 weeks at police headquarters in Dundee.

Solicitor David Duncan, defending, said Huang understood "the folly" of what she had done and "the difficulties and stress the girls experienced" as a result.

Imposing the jail term, Sheriff Alastair Carmichael told Huang: "I have to take into account the misery your actions caused to the complainers."

She showed no emotion as she was led, handcuffed to a security guard, downstairs to the cells.