An Iranian sex-trafficking gang in London has admitted attempting to sell underage girls’ virginity for over $200,000.
Three women and a man pleaded guilty to coercing a group of teenagers into offering their sexual services to clients, and bragging to men they could provide virgins as young as 13 to be "broken in,” the BBC reports.
The group, scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, was busted last fall after a sting operation by London's Scotland Yard.
Tipped off by employees at Central London's Jumeirah Carlton Hotel, police responded to investigate a bizarre handwritten letter delivered to the hotel by a woman in the gang.
"I have 12 girls ready from the age 14 to 20 years, who are living all over the U.K.," the letter read, according to the Daily Mail. "I have spent money on the preparation of this event such as a rented house for the girls and also all expenses needed."
Police were able to trace the woman's car and the phone number she included in the letter to Fatima Hagnegat, 24, and her husband Rassoul Gholampour.
Detectives then contacted the gang pretending to be potential clients, and acted interested in hiring a group of girls.
An agent acting undercover called the number in the letter and spoke to Hagnegat’s aunt, Marohkh Jamali, 41, who offered to arrange a group of girls for four or five customers.
Jamali emailed the agent pictures of several young girls, the BBC reports, saying she could even provide teenagers who could be "broken" by a client.
She told the agent she would bring five girls to London, including two 13-year-olds, and demanded payment between 50,000 pounds and 150,000 pounds per girl -- roughly $77,785 to $233,355.
The next day, when Jamali and Hagnegat brought six girls to a hotel to meet what they thought was a customer; police surprised them and arrested the pair.
The girls told the officers they had been tricked into thinking they would be paid for "dancing" at a party for rich men, and that only when they arrived in London were they told they might also have to have sex with them.
The gang members, all unemployed, pleaded guilty to trafficking and prostitution offenses on Monday. The woman who owned the apartment where the girls were taken before the "party" also pleaded guilty to the same two charges.
During the investigation, the Daily Mail reports, it was revealed that the group had tried to send a similar letter to the hotel before.
Jamali’s lawyer Dee Connolly maintains no sexual services were sold and that no money changed hands.
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