AN IRISHMAN, his wife and daughter have been jailed for running a multimillion-euro prostitution ring involving 70 women across Ireland via mobile phones and the internet from a vicarage in a quiet Welsh village.
Thomas John Carroll (48), originally from Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, was jailed for seven years at Cardiff Crown Court after pleading guilty to organising prostitution and money laundering.
His South African wife, Shamiela Clark (32), was jailed for 3½ years for the same offences. Carroll’s daughter, 26-year-old former law student Toma Carroll, was jailed for two years for money laundering.
The three were arrested in Wales after a major investigation by the Garda and British police.
While the brothels owned and run by Carroll and his wife operated in 18 towns and villages across the Republic and Northern Ireland the operation was co- ordinated from their rented house in Castlemartin, Pembrokeshire.
Prosecutor Robert Davies said: “No one living in the hamlet had the faintest idea what was going on in their midst.”
The couple, who have a young son, moved there when they were arrested in Ireland in 2005 and 2006 on suspicion of organising prostitution here.
Their sentencing hearing yesterday heard that by moving to Wales they believed they could operate “under the radar” and out of the reach of the Garda.
They placed advertisements in UK newspapers seeking women and then organised their travel to Ireland. They were accommodated in brothels nationwide.
Their services as prostitutes were advertised on internet sites with clients in Ireland booking over a large number of Irish mobile phones run from Wales.
The court was told that the women who worked as prostitutes for Carroll were trafficked from Portugal, Venezuela, Brazil and Nigeria.
They charged clients €140 for 30 minutes, with €75 going to Carroll. Toma Carroll collected the money in the Republic and then forwarded it to her father.
In one 12-month period €1.1 million was transferred.
Toma Carroll was arrested on a visit to Wales to see her father. She walked free from court yesterday on the basis of time already served in jail awaiting sentencing.
Judge Neil Bidder told Carroll and Clark: “You made huge profits from the women exploited. You had no care for those women and you were prepared to profit from their unhappy trade.
“You set up brothels all across the Republic and Northern Ireland, renting from unsuspecting landlords and moving women from brothel to brothel as your economic needs dictated.”
Judge Bidder said while Clark and Carroll did not traffic women themselves they “turned a blind eye”.
He said: “If you choose to close your eyes to people who bring prostitutes into your business you must share some of the responsibility for their activity.
The court was told most of the women had been drawn to prostitution by difficult personal circumstances or were coerced by fear. The defendants had profited “without having to go through the experience themselves of sexual activities with strangers time and time again”.