Prostitutes are ‘turning Airbnb homes into makeshift BROTHELS where they are secretly entertaining clients’
Police warn that potential traffickers are setting up in temporary holiday lets to draw in seedy customers
AIRBNB rentals across the UK are being hired by prostitutes to turn them into makeshift brothels.
Traffickers are signing up to the holiday rental app to cater for sleazy clients without the need for home visits or more expensive hotel stays, police say.
Homeowners letting out their properties on the popular service are being warned to check into the backgrounds of prospective renters.
Officers in Gloucestershire last week made several arrests after going to as many as ten properties in Cheltenham and Gloucester suspected of being used as pop-up brothels.
Other forces across the country have warned of the growing trend.
Handlers in the sex trade exploit the convenience of the app to book stays of just a few days or a couple of weeks in one town before shipping off to another.
They advertise their services in advance to entice seedy customers and build demand before moving in, maximising their earnings.
It makes the gangs harder to track down — raising fears that they are avoiding detection because women could be trafficked from Eastern Europe or further afield.
There were four arrests on suspicion of human trafficking after busts at six pop-up brothels in Cheltenham and a further four in Gloucester.
As well as in Gloucestershire, cases have been reported in Cornwall, the Lake District, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Preston, Aberdeen and Norwich, according to .
In Newquay alone, 14 Airbnb brothers were identified between last summer and January this year.
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Sergeant Matt Puttock, the tactical lead for sexual exploitation at Gloucestershire Police, said: "Some of these places visited have been Airbnbs that have been rented out for a week or two.
"These are by their nature often quite hidden places. It's very transient as they often hire Airbnb places or other serviced apartments.
"Many times neighbours do not know what is going on. Landlords have often used us as mediators to try and remove these people once they know what they are up to.
"We collected various bits of information and visited these places not to criminalise the sex workers, but to check on their safety.
"We interview all the women and check why they are there and whether they want to be there.
"Generally we have no power to make them leave the situation they are in but we can use various methods to remove women if needs be.
"But it is difficult. Some are brainwashed to not to talk to the police or any other authority."
Detective Inspector Nick Skipworth of Cambridge Police previously said: "We see a lot of them using flats and these will be £1,000-a-week flats.
"They can easily cover that. I chatted to one Polish girl who was 19 and she was seeing up to ten clients a day and making £100 a client.
"This sort of thing is going on everywhere. There are certain places that they all seem to go and visit — the Romanians almost have a set tour route they follow around the UK."
An Airbnb spokesman said: "We have a zero tolerance policy for issues like these and are urgently investigating.
";There have been over 200 million guest arrivals in Airbnb listings and negative incidents are extremely rare."
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