FIVE members of an Albanian family gang who traded young women in a £2 million trafficking and prostitution ring were jailed yesterday. The ringleader and the “money man” of the gang were both given 18-year sentences.

At least 21 Lithuanian teenagers were forced to work in a number of West London brothels. Some had been lured to Britain with promises of jobs. Instead they were put to work around-the-clock and had to entertain up to 20 clients a day. Girls who had outlived their usefulness were sold for £4,000 to pimps in Manchester.

Flamur Demarku, 34, his brothers Agron, 22, and Bedari, 22, both of whom were asylum-seekers, and Izzet Fejzullahu, 32, were found guilty this week of trafficking and prostitution offences after a two-month trial at Southwark Crown Court in London. Another brother, Xhevair Demarku, 29, had admitted conspiracy to traffic for prostitution, and conspiracy to control prostitution.

Agron, the ringleader, who was described as an “intelligent and resourceful man” and Flamur, the firm’s “money man”, were both jailed for 18 years. Xhevair and Bedari, said to be junior partners, were given five and eight years respectively.

Fejzullahu, a “trusted member of the Demarku family firm”, was jailed for 14 years.

Sentencing the gang, Judge Anthony Pitts said: “People trafficking is degrading and brings untold misery on to people. It has echoes of slavery. It is unthinkable that this kind of despicable behaviour could be tolerated by a civilised society.”

Police discovered a chain of seven brothels after what started as an inquiry into the disappearance of a 16-year-old Lithuanian girl who had been reported missing by her mother. Once the girl had been tracked down to a brothel in Hounslow, vice squad officers set up an undercover operation.

The investigation found a violent and organised gang that kept the money made by the young women and wired hundreds of thousands of pounds back to Albania.

One Lithuanian girl, aged 19, said that she was tricked into travelling to London with the promise of a career there. Instead, on her first night she was gang-raped by ten men. She was then taken to one of the houses in Hounslow.

“I realised when I walked in and saw the other girls in nighties that everything was not what it seemed,” she said. “I asked them why I was here and they laughed at me. They told me I was going to be a prostitute.”

For months she was kept prisoner. “I was not allowed to leave the house except maybe to buy shoes or some clothes for work. I never went out on my own — one of the other girls was always with me.”

Michael Holland, for the prosecution, told the court how a 16-year-old girl had been put to work as a sex slave. “She worked seven days a week irrespective of her menstrual cycle, and the services she was forced to provide were charged at between £40 and £100. All the money she made, as much as £300 to £800 per shift, she had to give to her controllers.”

Mr Holland added: “The profits to be made from one brothel with a small number of women would average £3,000 a day. A conservative estimate of the takings would be an average of £5,000 per day throughout the period, equivalent to an annual turnover of £1,825,000.”

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