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SENTENCED: Fosuhene, left, and Sigba

TURNING OVER nearly £1 million in less than a year, four people who ran a lucrative sex trade from a brothel in Camden have been given prison sentences.

Vera Fosuhene, 46, Sorient Sigba, 54, Michael Wallen, 50, and Simon Earl were found guilty for their part in helping run the brothel at John Mews in Holborn, Camden, central London. All pleaded guilty, except for Sigba who was sent for a trial at Southwark Crown Court on January 17. On January 25 a jury took two hours to find him guilty for money laundering and controlling prostitution.

Sigba, of Erith, east London, was handed a jail term of six years – three years for each charge.

Fosuhene, of Croydon, south London, received a nine-month sentence which has been suspended for three years. Her charges relate to assisting the management of the brothel and two counts of supplying cocaine.

Earl and Wallen were given four and two-and-a-half-year sentences, respectively.

Undercover officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Trafficking and Prostitution Unit (TPU) visited the brothel after acting on intelligence that clients were being brought to the premises from nearby venues to pay for sex with young women.

Undercover operatives were offered sex and cocaine while at the scene. Brothel organisers charged £300 per hour for sex and £390 per hour if payment was made with a credit card.

After the officers had gathered enough evidence, two were arrested on October 18, 2011, and the other two suspects were apprehended on November 15 and December 21 of the same year.

The TPU investigation found that the establishment had been running since 2006. Between January 9 and October 18, 2011, the brothel had turned over £946,766.

Once the four had been sentenced, TPU detective constable Kieran Backhouse said: “These people ran a brothel at an address which, on the outside, appeared reputable, but inside they were exploiting young women for their own financial gain.

“By painstakingly searching through financial information and making undercover visits, we were able to establish what these people were doing and how much they were making from their crime. Consequently, they have been convicted and sentenced.

“This should be taken as a warning to anyone else exploiting women in this way that the Met will take every step to find and prosecute them,” he added.