Four members of a prostitution ring who tried to sell the virginity of young women for up to £150,000 were jailed today.
The gang plotted to rake in huge sums by setting up a party at which young women could accept offers of sex for cash from wealthy Arab businessmen.
They offered their services in a handwritten letter to Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the owner of the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in Knightsbridge, central London, last August.
The multibillionaire sheikh, who police said had no knowledge of the crimes, became the ruler of Dubai in 2006 and owns hotels and landmark properties around the world.
Suspicious staff passed the note to Scotland Yard, which began an undercover sting operation involving a Farsi-speaking officer posing as a fixer.
Provocative photographs of the girls, including one aged 14, were exchanged in 27 emails before the meeting alongside discussion of what sex acts they were prepared to undertake.
One conspirator said some of the girls were virgins who could be "broken" by the client and offered to bring two 13-year-olds to the party for dancing.When several members of the gang turned up at a second hotel for a dancing and sex party with six scantily-clad girls aged between 14 and 22, they were arrested by waiting police.
Judge Alan Greenwood told Harrow Crown Court the gang were "motivated by greed" and played different roles in committing the crime.
He said: "Trafficking of persons for sexual exploitation is always serious. In this case it involved a money-making operation based on the exploitation and corruption of vulnerable young women.
"Some of them were very young. I accept that the youngest of them were going to do no more than dance.
"But even one as young as 17 or 18 was to be involved in prostitution and all of them were put at risk by you.
"This was a commercial operation. It involved planning and organisation. Its purpose was to yield considerable sums for each of the conspirators and that is why wealthy customers were targeted."
The gang was Mahrookh Jamali, 41, of West End Lane, Kilburn, north London; Sara Bordbar, of Finchley Road, north London; and husband and wife Fatima Hagnegat, 24, and Rasoul Gholampour, 30, of Redbrook Road, Wigan.
Ringleader and mother-of-four Jamali was jailed for two years and nine months; Hagnegat, described as the "recruiting sergeant", was jailed for two years and six months; Bordbar was jailed for two years and three months, and Gholampour was jailed for two years and nine months.
All four pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic six women aged between 17 and 22 from the North West to London between July and October last year for sexual exploitation.
By Chris Greenwood, PAhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gang-jailed-for-plot-to-sell-virginity-2079179.html
