Stories of women bought and sold ‘like meat’ and the criminal gangs enjoying lavish lifestyles at their expense are under the spotlight in this disturbing documentary
“I know what’s happening,” says DI Peter Brown of the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit. “But how do I turn it into evidence?” Slowly, carefully and without taking your eyes off the prize seems to be the answer, given over three episodes of the documentary Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers (Channel 4). It follows a three-year investigation, prompted by an anonymous letter to a police station in Gloucester, into a man called Mark Viner. He is suspected of being part of one of the estimated 4,500 organised crime gangs (yes, they do use the shorthand OCG, just like in Line of Duty) involved in money laundering, running brothels and trafficking the women working there.
The unit puts Viner under surveillance and painstakingly pieces the jigsaw together: the trips to Brazil and the return journeys with young female companions; the lavish lifestyle that could not possibly be funded by the pension that is his only recorded source of income; the discovery of three flats owned by Viner, out of which the women work; and the arrest of an accomplice, Lezlie Davies. Davies cries at the revelation that his friend Mark is involved in the exploitation of women, but his phone and other belongings provide a riposte to his claims of innocence, plus a wealth of new leads for the police in pursuit of Viner. The movement of cash is tracked. Women who have been bought and sold “like meat”, as one puts it, are interviewed. Other accomplices are found.
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