Hotelier ordered to pay nearly £100,000 in human trafficking case

Former hotel owner Shamsul Arefin, 50, has been fined £93,443 for trafficking human workers from Bangladesh.

The Crown Office, an independent public prosecution service for Scotland, ordered him to repay the money he made through his exploitation of four men while he owned Lochaber’s Stewart Hotel.

Arefin was found guilty of breaches of the Asylum and Immigration Act in July 2015 at Fort William Sheriff Court. At the time prosecutors said that Arefin made “substantial amounts of money through his exploitation of his victims”.

Liam Murphy, procurator fiscal for specialist casework, said: “Arefin took advantage of vulnerable people for his own financial gain, making significant amounts of money from the suffering of others.

“Our proceeds of crime team have been working to ensure Arefin will not be able to keep the money he made by trafficking people into labour.”