Members of a vile trafficking gang have been jailed for a total of more than 36 years. Three men and one woman carried out the appalling crimes over six years in Slovakia and Govanhill, bringing women to Glasgow and forcing them into prostitution.
Vojtech Gombar, 61, Anil Wagle, 37, Jana Sandorova, 28, and Ratislav Adam, 31, were today sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh as family members looked on from the public gallery.
Judge Lord Beckett sentenced Gombar to a 12-year jail term.
Wagle was given eight years and six months, Sandorova sentenced to seven years and Adam sentenced to nine years.
All four were given a Trafficking and Exploitation Prevention Order to last for five years on their release from prison.
Last month a jury at the High Court in Glasgow returned a guilty verdict for appalling crimes carried out between November 2011 and February 2017.
Young women and teenage girls - some who were pregnant - were coerced into travelling to the UK with the promise of better lives.
Lord Beckett told Gombar he had shown he was "callous and indifferent to those who you exploited."
Judge Lord Beckett said in his sentencing statement: "Such crimes are utterly repugnant.
"They involve the degradation of other humans, treating them as if they were objects or animals to be transported and sold for exploitation."
The judge spoke of one case where, when Gombar's victim was turned back by Border Control at Callais, he left her without food or money to make her own way back to Slovakia.
Wagle's actions, which included keeping a pregnant woman he bought for £10,000 outside Argyle Street Primark locked in his flat, were called "callous and contemptible" by Lord Beckett.
Wagle's defence lawyer, Gary Allan QC, told the court his client had applied for political asylum but his claim, which is under appeal, was rejected.
With no right to remain in the UK, the court was told, he is likely to be deported on completion of his sentence.
The court heard Sandorova is a mother of five children aged six to 13, who are being cared for by their grandmother.
She was involved in the exploitation of her pregnant cousin, who she bought clothes "of a kind intended to entice clients".
Lord Beckett, recognising that the children's father, Adam, is also being jailed, said: "I recognise that this is a desperate situation for them but one you and your partner brought about."
A jury found ringleader Gombar guilty of 13 charges involving eight women while a charge involving a ninth woman was found not proven.
Adam was convicted of seven charges involving three victims.
His partner, Sandorova, was convicted of six charges involving two victims.
And Wagle was found guilty of four charges involving one of the women.
Detective Superintendent Filippo Capaldi, Head of the Human Trafficking Unit, Police Scotland said: "Today's sentencing is a vindication for those women who were victims of this criminal gang and of their bravery in telling us about their horrific experiences.
"It also serves as a warning to traffickers operating in Scotland: make no mistake, you are not welcome here.
"We will work with our partners nationally and internationally, and within our own local communities, to identify victims and to pursue the gangs who exploit and enslave people for financial gain, and bring them to justice."
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