Former British police officer arrested in Thailand for 'sending sex slaves to UK'

Ian Shuttleworth, 42, is accused of luring Thai women to London with promises of restaurant jobs and then selling them to work in brothels.

It is alleged that he not only charged the women a fee but sold them on - one for £28,000 - and took sexual advantage of his victims in the process.

Arrest: Thai policemen escort British former police officer Ian Shuttleworth, charged with human trafficking

He was arrested at his Bangkok apartment after a tipoff to Thai police.

Shuttleworth, who was a traffic policeman in Liverpool, was living on a disability pension.

At the same time, he was running a private detective agency checking out whether Thai girlfriends of British holidaymakers were faithful.

His arrest followed police raids in London which resulted in 30 Thai women being released from the sex trade.

Many of the victims claimed they were forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to £28,000.

Nine Thai citizens appeared at Westminster magistrates court last month in connection with a trafficking ring which involved five brothels in the London area.

They appeared before City of Westminster Magistrates' court on April 22 charged with conspiracy to traffic women within the UK for sexual exploitation, running a brothel and money laundering.

Police freed 30 women during the raids. Many were being forced to work as sex slaves to pay off huge debt claims made against them by the captors.

The so-called "debt bondage" levels were as high as £28,000.

Shuttleworth was arrested on Tuesday at his apartment in Bangkok.

He ran a security company in the city providing bodyguards to prominent Thais, reports said.

Caught: Shuttleworth is paraded during a press conference at the Central Investigation Bureau in Bangkok today

The Bangkok Post reported that Shuttleworth's arrest followed a complaint by a woman allegedly sold into sex slavery in the UK.

She told police Shuttleworth seized her passport and forced her to have sex with men in London, Coventry, and an unknown location in Scotland, the paper reported.

The unidentified woman claims she was sold to a madam at a London restaurant and forced to work as a sex slave.