Daily Mail (h/t Will):

Scotland Yard sting foils plot to 'sell virginities' of young girls for £50,000 to wealthy Arabs
By Charlotte Gill and David Wilkes

A sex trafficking gang offered to sell the virginity of underage girls to wealthy businessmen for up to £150,000 each.

The three women and a man were offering girls as young as 13 but were arrested in an undercover Scotland Yard operation after staff at a luxury hotel tipped off police.

One of the women had arrived at the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in Knightsbridge, central London, in a silver BMW to offer the gang's services in a handwritten letter to the owner in August last year.

It read: 'I have 12 girls ready from the age 14-20 years, who are living all over the UK, I have spent money on the preparation of this event such as a rented house for the girls and also all expenses needed.'

Worried staff immediately alerted police who traced the car and telephone number given in the letter to an address in Wigan where Fatima Hagnegat, 24, lived with her husband, Rassoul Gholampour.

Inquires revealed that another similar letter had been delivered to the hotel on an earlier date.

Detectives then exchanged messages with the gang under the guise of potential clients. One undercover officer, known as 'Cameron', telephoned the mobile number provided in the letter to ask about hiring girls on behalf of a client.

He spoke to Hagnegat's aunt, Marohkh Jamali, 41, who told him that she could arrange a party for four to five people that night if required. She stated that she could provide girls from Iran, England and Eastern Europe aged 14 and 20.

The officer arranged to meet Jamali who told him some of her girls were virgins and could be 'broken' by his client. She emailed him photographs of a number of girls and said she would bring up to five girls to London, including two 13-year-olds, and would expect £50,000 to £150,000 for each.

The next day Jamali went to a different London hotel, in Bayswater, accompanied by Hagnegat and six girls, two of whom were aged 14 and 17.

The other four were 18 or older. Off icers swooped and arrested Jamali and Hagnegat.

The six victims, who had all been brought to London from the North-West of England and cannot be identified for legal reasons, were taken to a victims' centre.

They later described how they had travelled from Wigan with the defendants on the understanding that they would be able to earn some money 'dancing' for a party of rich men.

It was only later, on their arrival in London, that they were told they may be asked to have sex with the men.

The gang members, all jobless and Iranian, pleaded guilty to trafficking and prostitution offences at Harrow Crown Court yesterday.

Hagnegat and Jamali, who is from North-West London, each admitted conspiracy to traffic persons within the UK for sexual exploitation and a second charge of control of prostitution for gain.

A 43-year-old woman, who owned the London flat where the victims were taken the night before they were introduced to 'Cameron', admitted the same two charges. She cannot be named for legal reasons.

Gholampour, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic persons within the UK for sexual exploitation.

A third charge of conspiracy to arrange the prostitution of children will lie on the file of all four defendants.

Prosecutor Bill McGivern said the young women were not forced into sexual services, but were 'coerced' into offering them after dancing for clients.

The court heard the 14-year-old girl present when police swooped was used as 'bait' and there was no evidence she was to be used as a prostitute.

The four gang members, who have been in custody since their arrest last year, will be sentenced today.

Last night Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, head of the Metropolitan Police Service's Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command, said: 'This is a sad and harrowing case.'