Contact Admin. Detectives spent nine months investigating after the cash was found in a safe depository in Hampstead, north London, last year during Operation Rize, a project designed to disrupt organised crime and open more than 3, storage boxes left in banks and lock-ups across London.
The owner of the box, a woman from south-east Asia, was already known to officers from the Metropolitan police's clubs and vice unit, but until the discovery of the money detectives had failed to find any evidence that she was involved in sex trafficking.
She was arrested and questioned last summer but said the money in the box was cash she had accumulated from incapacity benefits. The woman was bailed and officers began an undercover operation, which led them to the criminals.
The organised crime gang was found to be trafficking women from south-east Asia for forced prostitution. Detectives raided five brothels yesterday in Camden, Finchley and Harrow, north London, as well as at Hemel Hempstead and St Albans, Hertfordshire, and at five home and businesses addresses.
Five women and seven men were arrested and questioned on suspicion of trafficking, controlling prostitution for gain, money laundering and possession of a stun gun.
