Three jailed for trafficking women to work in brothel flats

Three people have been jailed for human trafficking and running brothels in flats in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Qin Huang, 31, Guolei Huang, 35, and Xiao Min, 38, were arrested and charged as part of Operation Fasthold, a joint Police Scotland and Home Office probe.

Women, mainly from East Asia, had been exploited as prostitutes in sex-for-sale flats between December 2018 and September 2021.

They received sentences of between four and eight years at the High Court in Glasgow.

Min was jailed for eight-and-a-half years and Qin Huang for eight years after pleading guilty to charges under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act which included the “aiding and abetting of prostitution”.

Guolei Huang was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

He had previously pleaded guilty to being involved in the management of a brothel at three of the flats.

Judge Lady Poole said they had “played an important and significant role of the operation of the criminal network operating in Scotland”.

“Brothel keeping and trafficking women for prostitution involves the deliberate degrading of fellow human beings,” she said.

“Prostitution is a de-humanising experience. Women often end up being deprived of the ability to act in their own interests.

“They are valued not as people, but as a potential source of profit.”

Min originally entered the UK illegally and had been living in South London.

Defence counsel Thomas Ross KC said he had become involved when he fell into debt.

Qin Huang came to the UK on a student visa, was a failed asylum seeker and had been living off £140 per week benefits while owing money to people in China.

The court heard she believed women working in the brothels had “consented” to what they were doing.

But Huang’s lawyer, Mark Moir KC, said she “understood” this charge was “serious”.

Guolei Huang arrived in the UK in 2018 and was arrested in a brothel in Liverpool.

Iain McSporran KC, defending, said it appeared he did not see the women as “victims” and but as working “voluntarily”.

Mr McSporran added Guolei Huang maintained he did not know the other two wo were in the dock with him.