FLASHING wads of cash on TikTok and promising a plethora of luxury goods, the “Ice Queen” lured vulnerable women to the UK before trapping them in an endless cycle of sexual exploitation.
She is one of new generation of madams ruling Britain’s seedy sex trade, hiding the truth of people smuggling behind a veneer of glitz and glamour. Here The Sun reveals her empire – and the sprawling underbelly of sex work across the UK.
Thai gang boss Achareeya “Ice Queen” Spurr, 49, was jailed last monthfor trafficking 22 women from to the UK in 2025, slapping the workers with £25k debts.
She is one of a new generation of “Brothel Queens” bringing women from Asia and Eastern Europe to work in debt bondage and force them to exist in brutal conditions.
Fellow brothel madam Jie Zhang, 45, brought in women from and Eastern Europe, putting them to work in erotic massage “temples” and taking up to 60 per cent of their pay as part of “Cloud 9” gang.
Spurr and her finance worker husband Chin Ping were sentenced for running more than 20 brothels across London and the south east of .
The pair earned a fortune from their crimes, spending their illicit gains on luxury designer handbags, watches and other goods, with also discovering £50k in cash when they raided their flat in the Isle of Dogs.
Spurr’s son, Sarunyoo Siriwan, and her associate Ugur Sahin served as “lieutenants” in the gang, ferrying prostitutes around London for the madam, who referred to herself as the “Ice Queen”.
The gang rented out more than 20 properties across London and the south-east of England, turning them into brothels right under their neighbours’ noses.
The “Ice Queen” ran at network of at least 24 trafficked women, including at least one brought in across the Channel – but experts fear there could be tens of thousands of women smuggled into Britain as sex workers.
Investigators have identified up to 63,000 ads of sexual services across the UK – and almost 90 per cent of them showing at least one indicator of trafficking and exploitation.
Remarkably none of the residents living near two of the brothel locations we visited knew anything about the sex dens next door.
One man, who did not want to share his name, told The Sun the people who lived in the brothel above his flat in Lewisham, , were always remarkably polite.
The dad, who works night shifts, told The Sun: “All together there were four people up there I think, two women and two men. They were very polite. I saw them three or four times – they were very friendly.
“They would say hello and goodbye. They had happy faces like they didn’t have any stress. They didn’t look like normal people who had bills to pay, they had spotless faces like they had no worries.
“I had noticed women were coming from outside and going up there. They were Asian women, no older than 25 or 26. And sometimes men were coming in here and going upstairs. But I was shocked when the police told me what happened.
“The police said it was a prostitution sex spot – men were coming here and having alcohol and sex. “
He added: “All I heard was footsteps on the floorboards.
“And sometimes I would hear them having a party, dancing and drinking alcohol upstairs but that was it.”
Another neighbour, Kiaran Clarke, 59, said he also had no idea the Lewisham property was being used as a brothel.
He said: “I’m shocked. We literally lived right next to it and we had no idea. I never heard about it being a brothel.
“It’s a nice little oasis here but sometimes people do buy properties here and rent them out without vetting the tenants.”
Police saw Spurr visiting the Lewisham brothel, which is now up for sale, and sex workers leaving the address.
The gang also set up a brothel in an expensive flat owned by Ping in Distillery Tower, Deptford, London.
Yuksel Gezer, who owns The Drip cafe near the tower, said: “I have customers paying a pretty penny to live there. You have fintech guys spending £2,000 to £3,000 a month for a flat.
“The whole thing is mad. And the fact that it was a family run business as well. We call this cafe a family business.
“But I wasn’t surprised when I heard about it to be honest. It’s Deptford – and Deptford is rough.”
Spurr recruited Thai sex workers for the brothels through flashy videos on , promising riches if they moved to the UK.
She paid for the workers’ flights and then set them up on the prostitution website AdultWork after their arrival in Britain. The sex workers exploited by Spurr worked 14-hour days under savage conditions.
They had to have sex with men even if they did not like them and were only allowed one day off a week. They were also given two extra days off a month for menstruation.
When police finally busted Spurr they found Chanel and Louis Vuitton earrings in her flat, a Cartier cuff bracelet, Rolex, Bvlgari and other luxury watches and shopping receipts for Selfridges.
Meanwhile, she was capping the pay of her sex workers at £100 a day while they were paying off their £25k “debt”, regardless of how many men they slept with.
She even paid one woman a measly £50 after she was ill and only managed to see four customers in a day.
Her husband, Ping, 56, was responsible for setting up the sex workers on AdultWork. He carried out his work while balancing a day job at a credit rating agency.
Siriwan and Sahin ensured the women were able to join the site by taking pictures of them holding a copy of that day’s newspaper while standing next to post boxes near the brothels.
One sex worker interviewed by The Sun, who did not want to be identified, said the fact the gang was able to operate on the site reflects wider concerns about AdultWork.
She told The Sun: “You now have to confirm your ID to watch porn in the UK but you can still go on AdultWork and find sex workers’ phone numbers without doing an ID check. How is that right?
“We need to know who the men are that are using these sites. I know sex workers who have been attacked after meeting men through AdultWork.”
She called for ID checks on the site in order to better protect women. But AdultWork is not the only way for brothel gangs to find customers.
Fellow brothel Queen Jie Zhang, who headed up a London prostitution ring called Cloud 9, paid for her own sites to draw in customers, instead of relying on AdultWork.
One of the sites, seen by The Sun, is still up and running despite her imprisonment in 2024.
The site depicts the operation as an erotic massage service, with various “temples” across the capital.
The website boasts: “We have the most stunningly beautiful, highly trained sensual Oriental masseuses (from Japan, China and South Korea) all waiting to take you to erotic nirvana.”
Prices on the website range from £120 per hour for a “body to body nude massage” to £300 an hour for a “Tender Girlfriend Loving Care package”.
Disturbing listings on the website include pictures of the sex workers and list their height, hair colour, measurements and “complexion”.
There is also an “outcall” price for each worker on the website, with men paying a £20 extra taxi fee for the sex workers to be brought to them.
Research by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner found 63,000 ads for sexual services across just 12 websites, with more than 90 per cent showing at least one indicator of trafficking or exploitation.
In a single month alone, these websites racked up 41.7 million visits.
Remarkably Zhang and her gang booked 2,000 journeys and spent around £75k with a private taxi firm during their operation, which lasted from 2015 until 2020.
In that time prosecutors said she made around £2million in profits, sending a staggering £1.5million back to her mum in China, who in turn sent the washed back to Zhang in the UK.
She rented out properties across London as full-time sex dens and also booked Airbnbs to serve as pop-up brothels.
Zhang brought in Asian sex workers on tourist visas, leaving the women ripe for exploitation as they could not legally work in the UK.
Zhang, who was originally jailed for three years in 2024, had her sentence increased to eight years by the Court of Appeal.
Eleanor Lyons, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, said: “Every day thousands of women are being advertised online offering sexual services in communities across the country.
“Behind most of these adverts are signs of exploitation, women living in fear behind closed doors.”
“Many of these women are trafficked to the UK from abroad, leaving them isolated and vulnerable, and controlled by traffickers seeking to profit from their exploitation.
“Survivors advertised on these sites have told me how their perpetrators trafficked them, advertised them online, controlled their profiles, used violence to force them into sex and took their earnings. This is appalling and unacceptable.”
“Action must be taken, and any platform marketing trafficked and exploited women should act to immediately remove the adverts or be shut down. More must be done to hold perpetrators of this crime to account and to protect the exploited women.”
