Scotland Yard ruined Internet pornography in the UK

A large-scale action against Internet pornography has recently taken place in Great Britain. The Whitleys family, which was arrested last November (British man Thomas and his Russian wife Svetlana), organized Internet’s largest porno-site. The peculiar feature of the site was the fact that pornographic services were not publicly advertised, since prostitution is legally banned in the United Kingdom. The services were offered through escorting agencies: girls were offered to accompany men at various arrangements.

The family company organized several agencies, and each of them had their web-sites. Visitors could surf those sites forever, as every girl had a page of photographs and prices. For example, Belarussian girl Angelika costs J200 per hour and J1.160 per week. The manager of this company (the pimp) charged 30% of what clients paid.

Scotland-Yard obtained the information about the Whitleys’ monthly income: 100 000 pounds sterling, which were earned with the help of more than 60 girls. The majority of them arrived in the UK illegally with adequate rights for living. Most of them came from the Far East and former Soviet Union republics. The girls were housed in apartments that were situated around London’s business center, because clients could use their services without attracting much attention.

Scotland Yard investigators have been watching such firms for quite a while, but the large-scale operation was basically launched with the escape of one of those girls. Her confession to the police helped to start the investigation against a large network of sexual agencies.

Scotland Yard investigators split into two groups: those who played newly arrived businessmen and those who played unemployed girls. Needless to mention that all conversations and negotiations were taped.

The result of the legal proceedings is as follows: Svetlana Whitley was put into prison for 12 months for her business partnership, and her husband Thomas was sentenced to 15 months. Their personal bank accounts totaling J1.2 million will be confiscated, although investigators say that the family owns a bigger fortune in different banks all over the world, so the investigation will be continued.

Svetlana Tarasova PRAVDA.Ru UK

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov