Shocking Sex Trafficking Claims Made Against Millionaire Philanthropist

Investigators in the U.K. are reviewing evidence suggesting that one of the country’s wealthiest men engaged in a yearslong scheme of trafficking women to Britain and exploiting them for sex, authorities said.

Hamish Ogston, a high-profile British philanthropist worth around $160 million, was the subject of an explosive Sunday Times investigation published over the weekend detailing claims that he trafficked or attempted traffic vulnerable Filipina and Thai sex workers to the U.K. over the course of the last 15 years. In the wake of the report, Scotland Yard told The Times that it is aware of “allegations of exploitation” and drug offenses against Ogston.

“We take reports of this nature extremely seriously and are now reviewing this information to assess what further action is needed,” the Metropolitan Police statement added. Ogston, 75, has denied that he exploits women. “I am very sad that the publication of these allegations is going to cause immeasurable harm to the charities which I have been able to support over the years,” he said.

A company that he founded in 1980 distanced themselves from their former chairman on Monday. A spokesman for CPP said: “Hamish Ogston left the Board on 28 June 2013 and since that time, and save for those rights reserved for shareholders, has had no involvement in the management or operations of the group.”

The bombshell claims came to light based on a leak of around 1,000 documents, which allegedly contain handwritten notes from Ogston which he kept to routinely record his thoughts. The Sunday Times investigation into Ogston—who built his fortune with a credit card insurance firm founded in his early 30s—included a range of serious allegations, including that he trafficked a 23-year-old woman from the Philippines to the U.K. in 2013.

Once there, she was allegedly kept at Ogston’s property and used for sex, sometimes involving unspecified “extreme activities” which could have posed a risk to her health. The woman was also tasked with storing footage of the sexual events which had been filmed for Ogston’s use, the report claimed.

More recent allegations also include that Ogston illegally employed a Thai woman as a sex worker and domestic assistant in breach of her visitor visa, which prohibits the visitor from engaging in any form of work. Ogston allegedly said he planned to entrust the woman—who only left the U.K. last month—with destroying videos recorded during his parties and stopping the police getting hold of them after his death.

Ogston acknowledged that he had amassed a collection of 3,000 films from his parties, which were filmed at events fueled by all-night drug binges, according to the investigation. He allegedly procured drugs including crystal meth and cocaine through a Thai sex worker in London, who would also send other Thai women to Ogston for his parties. Ogston allegedly recognized that many of the women were beholden to pimps, with the Sunday Times claiming further that the women had “likely” been promised better lives for themselves.

Some of the Thai women allegedly required medical attention as a result of dangerous acts which took place at Ogston’s parties. And in one case, he allegedly suggested to a lawyer that he could use his charity, the Hamish Ogston Foundation, as “some foil” to help bring Thai women into Britain, even floating the idea of using them as interns for the organization.

The report claims that London’s Metropolitan Police were notified about claims of Ogston’s use of women and drug consumption in 2012 and 2013, but the force failed to investigate. It also claimed that, in 2016, authorities contacted a woman Ogston had paid for sex and later accused of blackmail, and that an officer sent two emails from the woman accusing the mogul of exploitation to Ogston himself.

Scotland Yard said it is investigating potential wrongdoing by its officers, and encouraged any alleged victims of modern slavery or trafficking to come forward. Lawyers for Ogston said that their client did not recognize the report’s description of events, and that he needed time to respond to the allegations which “date back many years.”