Police have charged two Londoners with human trafficking related offences and shut down a business called Fantasy World Escorts.
Police say they’ve been investigating the business for the past seven months. On Saturday, nine search warrants were executed and two people were arrested.
More than $100,000 in cash was found, as well as two vehicles, pepper spray and a Taser.
Two victims of human trafficking were identified.
The website www.fworld.ca was shut down by police.
Hamad Anwar, 26, and Tiffany Harvey, 24, are charged with three counts of benefiting from sexual services, possessing proceeds of crime, three counts of advertising another person for sexual services, two counts of trafficking, two counts of procuring or exercising control and one count of trafficking a person over 18.
London police are the first in Canada to lay a charge for advertising another person for sexual services, a new charge under Bill c-36, Canada’s controversial new prostitution law.
The Free Press wrote about Fantasy World Escorts in 2011.
The agency was located in a three-storey mansion on Commissioners Road E. It provided both in-house and out call services, charging as much as $360 an hour, a Free Press investigation found.
Months later, the owner of the Commissioners Rd. property, who said he was unaware it was being used as an escort agency, evicted the tenants.
The agency then moved to a high rise downtown, at Dundas and Waterloo streets. It’s not known at this time if that’s where the agency was operating when police shut it down this week.
A hotline has been established for victims to call at 519-660-5842.
http://www.lfpress.com/2015/11/10/lo...-world-escorts
Police say they’ve been investigating the business for the past seven months. On Saturday, nine search warrants were executed and two people were arrested.
More than $100,000 in cash was found, as well as two vehicles, pepper spray and a Taser.
Two victims of human trafficking were identified.
The website www.fworld.ca was shut down by police.
Hamad Anwar, 26, and Tiffany Harvey, 24, are charged with three counts of benefiting from sexual services, possessing proceeds of crime, three counts of advertising another person for sexual services, two counts of trafficking, two counts of procuring or exercising control and one count of trafficking a person over 18.
London police are the first in Canada to lay a charge for advertising another person for sexual services, a new charge under Bill c-36, Canada’s controversial new prostitution law.
The Free Press wrote about Fantasy World Escorts in 2011.
The agency was located in a three-storey mansion on Commissioners Road E. It provided both in-house and out call services, charging as much as $360 an hour, a Free Press investigation found.
Months later, the owner of the Commissioners Rd. property, who said he was unaware it was being used as an escort agency, evicted the tenants.
The agency then moved to a high rise downtown, at Dundas and Waterloo streets. It’s not known at this time if that’s where the agency was operating when police shut it down this week.
A hotline has been established for victims to call at 519-660-5842.
http://www.lfpress.com/2015/11/10/lo...-world-escorts
