An international sex trafficking operation that flew women from Thailand to Scotland—where they were forced to have sex with up to 15 men per day and were held as slaves—has just been smashed by Scottish police.
Manachaya Wanitthanawet, 40, has been sentenced to nine years and almost certainly eventual deportation back to her native Thailand, while her boyfriend and former client, Cameron Wilson, 30, was sentenced to 21 months for his role in laundering $190,000 that the despicable business brought in. Wilson was also convicted of living off the proceeds of prostitution (aka pimping).
That’s what sex trafficking does: It shatters human lives.
Wanitthanawet was convicted of recruiting and transporting at least two of the women, featuring them in advertisements for sexual services, and forcing them into prostitution between July 2019 and July 2022.
As mastermind of the operation, police say, Wanitthanawet recruited girls in Thailand by promising them jobs for at least $2,500 per month working as masseuses. When the women arrived in Scotland, they found they would be working as prostitutes in Airbnbs in Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness and Newcastle.
They were told that they owed Wanitthanawet $113,000 each and would have to become prostitutes to pay off their debt.
Wanitthanawet, known as Nuht, would provide costumes, condoms and birth control, and would advertise the women for sex in Vivastreet and Adultwork websites, just like in the infamous Backpage advertisements in the US.
The women would make hundreds of dollars per day, but all of that money was turned over to Wanitthanawet, who would give her slaves about $38 per week for food. But her dreams of becoming a prostitution Thai-coon crashed and burned when one of her sex-trafficked victims managed to escape her clutches and went to the police.
One victim testified, “I wanted to escape from that situation, but I had no money, no passport and spoke no English, so then I cry.”
The pimping pair did far worse than what they were charged for—they stole these women’s trust in others, destroyed their self-image and literally poisoned their very souls. That’s what sex trafficking does: It shatters human lives and lets immoral people—evil people, despicable people—make money from peddling the brutalized bodies of helpless innocents.
At least, this time, two of them got caught and are going to pay for their actions.
Wanitthanawet voluntarily worked as a prostitute and masseuse after immigrating to Scotland, specializing in “happy endings,” which is how she met Wilson, then a client, enabling her to launch a career as a “madame” instead of a common prostitute.
Her attorney, Kris Gilmartin, admitted that she exploited the women and kept them under control using the huge debt she claimed they owed.
“Given the length of sentence which will be imposed, it is inevitable that deportation will follow,” he said. “She will have to return to Thailand to start again.”
Wanitthanawet and Wilson saw their human trafficking operation fall apart when one of their victim’s clients rescued the girl, and police learned of the crime. A police raid soon followed, in which one of the girls’ passport details and electronic devices were found, including messages involving prostitution appointments.
The pair were convicted and sentenced after a four-day trial.
Scotland is still a long way from being free of sex trafficking. In 2023, 17,004 victims in the UK were reported to the Home Office, mostly from Vietnam or Albania.
But at least this twisted twosome are out of the pimping business for the foreseeable future.
Here’s to getting the rest of them.
