London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing, Kit Malthouse, has asked the UK’s mobile phone networks to help crack down on prostitution and human trafficking ahead of the 2012 Olympics. He says prostitutes’ mobile phone numbers are often advertised on cards left in public phone boxes – and he wants the police and the mobile operators to work together and disconnect the numbers as soon as they’re identified.
“We want companies like Vodafone, Orange, O2, 3, Virgin and T-Mobile to make it difficult for the pimps and traffickers who advertise their mobile numbers on these cards to do business by barring them”, he said. [Press release]