Police who investigated how a Lithuanian woman was forced to work as prostitute by a gang who bought her for �5,000, have said they are examining other cases. Detectives said they are examining other cases where foreign women are forced into the sex industry in Wales.
Gjergj Mungiovi-Cuka, 19, of Caldicot, was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court of trafficking the 21-year-old woman.
Meanwhile, an ex-police chief said the sex industry must be better regulated.
Cardiff Crown Court heard this week how Mungiovi-Cuka had been part of a gang who had bought the Lithuanian woman for �5,000 after she had been smuggled into London.
They brought her to Cardiff where she was forced to work in three brothels in the city. She said she was physically abused and told by the Albanian men that she would be tracked down and killed if she ran away.
Mungiovi-Cuka, who denied the people trafficking charge, was convicted on Thursday and now faces sentence with Akil Likcani, 20, who previously admitted trafficking and controlling a prostitute. A third Albanian man remains at large.
Superintendent Josh Jones, South Wales Police deputy commander for Cardiff said: "Certainly within Cardiff, we have in recent months dealt with people from Romania and we're currently looking at people from Thailand."
Calling for tighter regulation of massage parlours which act as brothels, former chief constable of West Yorkshire Police Keith Hellawell said massage parlours are "an easy option at the moment".
"Local authorities know what's happening, police know what is happening and they are really just left to their own devices," he said.
'Under-age girls'
"I believe we should come in with some greater degree of regulation, control, health checks, register checks in order that we can if nothing else help support and save the desperate situation that many of these young girls can find themselves in."
Jenny Randerson AM for Cardiff Central told BBC Wales said she was aware of the massage parlours in her constituency and is aware of the nature of the sex trade through her work as a magistrate.
She said: "It isn't just foreign girls who are being traded, there are also an awful lot of very young girls, under-age girls who are involved in the sex trade in Cardiff as well.
 Abygale's was one of the venues in which the Lithuanian woman worked |
"I would not be at all surprised if the problem stretched beyond Cardiff to other cities in Wales and the larger towns.
"But, of course, with most social problems of this nature it is bigger in terms of numbers in Cardiff and it is big enough for the police to identify and start to deal with it because there are very serious issues here for the young women involved."
Louise, a prostitute working in a Cardiff massage parlour, told BBC Wales' Good Morning Wales programme: "We were never forced into anything, however, I do believe that the foreign girls are...
"Not so much the massage parlour but people outside making them do things for money. I would never have sex without a condom - I've been offered up to �300 but health is more important than money.
"But I feel the people who have been forced into it by pimps, by foreign men especially, they feel obligated to do that for the person who has pushed them into it in the first place because it is extra money and that's when the problems start."
David Ould, deputy director of Anti Slavery International, said a Home Office study had concluded that at least 1,500 women were trafficked into the UK sex trade each year.
Mr Ould called for more to be done to help the women involved, claiming that those who were deported immediately remained in danger.
Baroness Gale of Blaenau Rhondda, who has raised questions on human trafficking in the House of Lords, said: "I was absolutely horrified to learn that a woman in 2005 has been sold to men. It is a form of modern-day slavery."
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I was absolutely horrified to learn that a woman in 2005 has been sold to men. It is a form of modern-day slavery.
