A woman who trafficked two friends into the UK from Romania to work as prostitutes in a Carlisle brothel she ran has been given a suspended prison sentence.
Thirty-year-old Ana Stefan raked in almost £146,000 during 20 months of illegal activity centring on a flat at the city’s Greystone Road.
This was uncovered as police conducted a welfare check at the rented address in late August, 2021. Specially trained officers quizzed two women who admitted being involved in sex work. One claimed she didn’t work for anyone else and had arranged travel from Eastern Europe to Cumbria herself. The other insisted she travelled of her own free will.
As police were granted permission to search that property, they also executed a warrant at Stefan’s rented home at Carlisle’s Woodrouffe Terrace.
Prosecutor Andrew Evans told the city’s crown court today: “From that address they recovered three mobile phones belonging to the defendant (Stefan) which, when the data was extracted and analysed, showed a clear picture of her role in operating the brothel.”
Police painstakingly translated three months of iPhone chat from Romanian into English which showed Stefan was taking half of what the two women earned. Thousands of messages revealed she was organising sex work being conducted by several different woman at the flat.
Mr Evans submitted the chat showed Stefan liaising directly with clients to arrange times, prices and payment methods, while asking “which girl they wanted”. When one woman complained a customer had been violent with her, it was decided a camera should be moved so Stefan could hear when she needed assistance.
Stefan continued to arrange clients for one woman even when outside the UK.
“The Crown suggest there is evidence to show that at least eight women,” said Mr Evans, “all worked from the flat at difference times during the course of the indictment period.” This ran from January, 2020, through several COVID lockdowns to September the following year.
Stefan was linked to websites on which the women’s services were advertised. And when police trawled through her bank accounts they discovered income of £184,405. Mr Evans asserted almost £146,000 of this represented the proceeds of illegal trade with Stefan splashing out on holidays or identified purchases overseas, making cash withdrawals totalling nearly £21,000, paying off loans and sending more than £71,000 to many named Romanians.
“It is the Crown’s case that the defendant used the profits of the business to fund her lifestyle and send funds back to her home country,” added Mr Evans.
Stefan admitted one offence of controlling prostitution for gain and two Modern Slavery Act charges of arranging or facilitating the travel of another with a view to exploitation.
When stopped at the UK border within the Eurotunnel terminal in France on 3rd August, 2021, Stefan was driving a Mercedes S class in which two prostitutes — and two men — were travelling. “A search of the luggage belonging to (the two women) revealed that they were bringing in lingerie, sex toys and paraphernalia suggestive of their being sex workers,” said Mr Evans.
They were refused entry on that occasion but days later travelled to Ireland where they separated and all headed to Carlisle.
“It is the Crown’s case that the defendant organised and paid for the two women to travel into the UK, and arranged alternative travel routes when their plan to use the Channel Tunnel was interdicted by the Border Force,” said the prosecutor.
Stefan accepted running the brothel, saying the two women named in the trafficking charge were friends working as prostitutes in Romania who had asked her to help with a UK move to earn money.
However, she insisted the brothel business was “not solely my responsibility”, adding: “I did not realise what I was doing was a criminal offence or the severity at the time. If I was aware, I would not have become involved.”
She denied manipulating or coercing the women in any way, saying the women had come to the UK freely because they wanted to. “She is truly remorseful for her actions,” said defence lawyer, Andrew Gurney, of the mum-of-one.
Judge Nicholas Barker told Stefan: “The running of illegal prostitution in this country is a matter that the courts take seriously. Such activities provide the significant risk of exploitation and typically risk to vulnerable young females.
“They also typically generate significant funds for organised crime groups, these funds generating activity in other criminal enterprises.”
But finding that Stefan had likely at some stage been a victim herself, that there was a realistic chance of rehabilitation and to mitigate the impact on her daughter, the judge suspended a 24-month jail term for two years.
She must work with probation and comply with the strict terms of a five-year slavery and trafficking prevention order.
