Teen victim discovered in nail bar

A teenage victim of human trafficking didn’t know what town he was living in when he was discovered by police illegally working in a Bathgate nail bar.

The youngster was picked up by officers at the nail salon after being brought to Scotland by Hong Chuong Dang ( 44) who was part of an organised crime gang.

Dang brought vulnerable Vietnamese to Scotland to work in nail bars. Many didn’t speak English and were often held against their will and bonded in debt to their slavemasters.

Dang was picked up by police in a raid on his home in Bromley, Kent and was jailed for a year in September 2016 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after admitting four charges relating to trafficking migrants to exploit them for labour.

He had trafficked at least four Vietnamese immigrants, three of them women, in the two years before his arrest in 2015. Some of the women had worked in his nail bar for more than a year.

And Dang’s victims stayed in a property in a private housing estate in Bathgate.

His arrest featured in Channel 4 documentary The Modern British Slave Trade, screened on Tuesday.

Dang was caught by officers from the police national human trafficking unit, who had been watching the nail bar in the town.

When they checked the shop, they found the frightened 16- year- old boy who said he had been smuggled to Scotland from Vietnam.

Speaking via an interpreter, the boy said: “I set off by truck from Vietnam. I don’t know how many countries we passed through or how many trucks we had to change.”

He admitted to police he didn’t know where he was – despite having been there for months.

The teenager also said he was getting “pocket money” but added he was happy with the money as he was only a “trainee”.

In the programme, DCI Ruth Gilfillan, former head of the human trafficking unit, said: “We meet people who have no idea of where they are. They don’t speak any English and have no understanding of the situation they’re in or how to get themselves out of it.” Anti-slavery campaigner Andrew Wallis, from charity Unseen, said there has been a massive growth in nail bars across the UK, often crime fronts exploiting vulnerable migrants.

He said: “We are finding these people are held there against their will in a forced labour situation.”

In December, 100 people working in nail bars were arrested in a crackdown. More than 280 premises in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff were targeted as part of Operation Magnify.