Mananchaya Wanitthanawet, 42, is currently serving a nine year jail sentence for exploiting her two victims in the sex trade.
A woman who trafficked her fellow Thai countrywomen to Scotland to work as prostitutes was today ordered to hand over £3815 to settle a proceeds of crime action brought against her.
Mananchaya Wanitthanawet, 42, is currently serving a nine-year jail sentence for exploiting her two victims in the sex trade. Prosecutors raised an action to strip her of crime profits and a judge at the High Court in Edinburgh was told that a settlement has now been reached in the case.
Advocate depute Bryan Heaney said that it was agreed under the settlement that Wanitthanawet’s benefit from criminal conduct amounted to £123,000, but the available amount for a confiscation order was £3815.
Wanitthanawet offered to help the women find work in the UK but forced them to provide massage and sexual services to repay alleged debts. Victims worked from addresses in Dundee, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness dealing with up to 15 men a day to pay off the debt.
One victim said she felt like her “hands were tied”. She said: “In my heart, I wanted to escape from that situation, but I had no money, no passport and spoke no English, so then I cry.”
Wanitthanawet was convicted of recruiting and transporting the women, featuring them in adverts for sexual services and forcing them into prostitution between July 2019 and July 2022, following a trial at the High Court in Dundee.
The trial judge, Lord Scott, told her: “This involved the deliberate degrading of fellow human beings. What you put them through was dehumanising.”
“It deprived them of the ability to act as they wished or in their own interests. They were valued only as a source of profit,” said the judge.
Lord Scott told Wanitthanawet: “You are clearly an intelligent person, as evidenced by your degree in business and economics.”
“Unfortunately, you have chosen to use your intelligence and business skills in the exploitation of two vulnerable young women who found themselves trapped into prostitution in a foreign country thousands of miles from their homes and families.”
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