Runako CelinaBBC Eye Investigations
Warning: Incorporates disturbing content material and graphic descriptions of sexual acts
A person operating a intercourse ring working out of Dubai’s most glamorous neighbourhoods, and exploiting susceptible ladies, has been recognized by a BBC investigation.
Charles Mwesigwa, who says he’s a former London bus driver, instructed our undercover reporter he may present ladies for a intercourse get together at a beginning value of $1,000 (£740), including that many can do “just about every little thing” purchasers need them to.
Rumours of untamed intercourse events within the UAE emirate have circulated for years. The hashtag #Dubaiportapotty, which has been seen greater than 450 million occasions on TikTok, hyperlinks to parodies and speculative exposés of girls accused of being money-hungry influencers secretly funding their existence by fulfilling probably the most extreme of sexual requests.
Our BBC World Service investigation was instructed the truth is even darker.
Younger Ugandan ladies instructed us that they had not anticipated to must undertake intercourse work for Mr Mwesigwa. In some circumstances, they believed they have been travelling to the UAE to work in locations like supermarkets or lodges.
At the very least considered one of Mr Mwesigwa’s purchasers often asks to defecate on the ladies, in response to “Mia”, whose title we’ve modified to guard her identification, and who says she was trapped by Mr Mwesigwa’s community.
Mr Mwesigwa denies the allegations. He says he helps ladies discover lodging by means of landlords, and that ladies observe him to events due to his rich Dubai contacts.
We now have additionally found that two ladies linked to Mr Mwesigwa have died, having fallen from high-rise residences. Though their deaths have been dominated as suicides, their family and friends really feel the police ought to have investigated additional.
Mr Mwesigwa mentioned the incidents have been investigated by the Dubai police and requested us to contact them for info. They didn’t reply to our request.
One of many ladies who misplaced her life, Monic Karungi, arrived in Dubai from western Uganda.
She discovered herself sharing a flat with dozens of different ladies working for Mr Mwesigwa, in response to one of many ladies, who we’re calling Keira, who says she lived with Monic there in 2022.
“[His] place was like a market… There have been like 50 ladies. She was not completely happy as a result of what she anticipated will not be what she obtained,” Keira instructed us.
Monic thought the job in Dubai was going to be in a grocery store, in response to her sister Rita.
“He [Mr Mwesigwa] was violent once I instructed him I wished to return house,” says Mia, who additionally knew Monic in Dubai. She says that, when she first arrived, he instructed her she already owed him £2,000 ($2,711) and that inside two weeks that debt had doubled.
“Cash for air tickets, to your visa, for the place you are sleeping, meals,” says Mia.
“Which means you must work exhausting, exhausting, exhausting, pleading for males to return and sleep [with] you.”
Monic owed Mr Mwesigwa greater than $27,000 (£19,918) after a number of weeks, in response to what a relative of hers we’re calling Michael says she instructed him. He provides that he acquired tearful voice notes from her.
Household handoutMia instructed us that purchasers have been largely white Europeans, and included males with excessive fetishes.
“There’s this one consumer, he poops on ladies. He poops and he tells them to eat the shit,” she defined quietly.
One other lady we’re calling Lexi, who says she was tricked by a special community, echoed Mia’s story, saying “porta potty” requests have been frequent.
“There was a consumer who mentioned: ‘We pay you 15,000 Arab Emirates Dirham ($4,084, £3,013) to gang-rape you, pee in your face, beat you, and add in 5,000 ($1,361, £1,004)'” for being recorded consuming faeces.
Her experiences have led her to imagine there’s a racial ingredient to this excessive fetish.
“Each time I mentioned that I would not need to try this, it appeared to get them extra . They need someone who’s going to cry and scream and run. And that someone [in their eyes] needs to be a black individual.”
Lexi says she tried to get assist from the one individuals she thought may intervene – the police. However she says they instructed her: “You Africans trigger issues for one another. We do not need to get entangled. And they might hold up.”
We put this allegation to the Dubai police and they didn’t reply.
Lexi ultimately escaped again to Uganda and now helps to rescue and help ladies in related conditions.
Discovering Charles Mwesigwa wasn’t straightforward. We may solely discover one image of him on-line – and it was taken from behind. He additionally makes use of a number of names throughout social media.
However by means of a mix of open-source intelligence, undercover analysis, and knowledge from a former member of his community, we traced him to a center class neighbourhood in Dubai – Jumeirah Village Circle.
To corroborate what sources had instructed us about his enterprise – supplying ladies for degrading intercourse acts – we despatched in an undercover reporter posing as an occasion organiser sourcing ladies for high-end events.
Mr Mwesigwa appeared calm and assured when talking about his enterprise.
“We have like 25 ladies,” he mentioned. “Many are open-minded… they’ll do just about every little thing.”
He defined the associated fee – from $1,000 (£738) per lady per evening, however extra for “loopy stuff”. He invited our reporter for a “pattern evening”.
When requested about “Dubai porta potty” he replied: “I’ve instructed you, they’re open-minded. Once I say open-minded… I’ll ship you the craziest I’ve.”
In the middle of the dialog, Mr Mwesigwa mentioned he was once a London bus driver. We now have seen proof he put that occupation down on an official doc in east London in 2006.
He went on to inform our reporter that he beloved this enterprise.
“I may win the lottery, 1,000,000 kilos, however I might nonetheless do it… it is turn into a part of me.”
Troy, a person who says he used to behave as operations supervisor for Mr Mwesigwa’s community, gave us extra details about how he says it’s run.
He says Mr Mwesigwa pays off safety at numerous nightclubs so they may let his ladies in to seek out purchasers.
“I’ve heard about varieties of intercourse that I’ve by no means seen in my life. It does not matter what you undergo so long as his wealthy males are completely happy… [the women] haven’t any escape route…They see musicians, they see footballers, they see presidents.”
Mr Mwesigwa has been in a position to get away with operating this operation, Troy claims, as a result of Troy and others are usually not simply used as drivers. He says their names are additionally utilized by Mr Mwesigwa to rent automobiles and residences, in order that his personal title by no means seems on the paperwork.
On 27 April 2022, Monic posted a selfie from Al Barsha – a residential neighbourhood common with expats in Dubai. 4 days later, she was lifeless. She had been within the emirate for simply 4 months.
In line with Mia, Monic and Mr Mwesigwa had been often arguing within the interval earlier than she left. Mia says Monic had been refusing to adjust to Mr Mwesigwa’s calls for and had discovered a manner out of his community.
“She had obtained some form of job. She was very excited. She thought she was gonna get free, she was going to get her life again as a result of now that was an actual job, no sleeping with males,” Mia says.
Monic moved out to a special condominium about 10 minutes’ stroll away. It was from this condominium’s balcony that she fell on 1 Could 2022.
InstagramMonic’s relative Michael, who was within the UAE on the time she died, says he tried to get solutions.
Police instructed him they stopped their investigation, having discovered medication and alcohol within the condominium Monic had fallen from, and solely her fingerprints on the balcony, he says.
He obtained a loss of life certificates for Monic from a hospital, but it surely didn’t say how she had died. And her household have been unable to acquire a toxicology report for her.
However a Ghanaian man dwelling within the condominium constructing was extra useful, he says, taking him to a different block to fulfill the person he mentioned was Monic’s boss.
Michael describes the scene when he obtained there and noticed the place the ladies have been housed.
He says by means of the cloud of shisha smoke in the lounge, he made out what regarded like cocaine on the desk and girls having intercourse on chairs with purchasers.
He claims he discovered the person we had beforehand recognized as Charles Mwesigwa in mattress with two ladies, and that when he tried to pull him to the police Mr Mwesigwa replied: “I’ve spent 25 years in Dubai. Dubai is mine… There isn’t any manner you will report me… Embassy is me, I am the embassy.
“[Monic’s] not the primary to die. And she or he will not be the final,” he added, in response to Michael.
Mia and Keira each independently say they witnessed this dialog and each verify its wording. After we requested Mr Mwesigwa what he meant by this, he denied having mentioned it.
Monic’s loss of life shares haunting similarities with that of Kayla Birungi, one other Ugandan lady who lived in the identical neighbourhood as her, and died in 2021 after falling from a Dubai high-rise condominium which we’ve proof to recommend was managed by Charles Mwesigwa.
The cellphone quantity for her landlord, shared with us by Kayla’s household, turned out to be considered one of Mr Mwesigwa’s numbers. Troy additionally confirms that Mr Mwesigwa managed the condominium, as do 4 different ladies we spoke to for this investigation.
InstagramKayla’s kinfolk say that they – like Monic’s household – heard Kayla’s loss of life had been linked to alcohol and medicines. However a toxicology report seen by the BBC exhibits none have been current in her system on the time of her loss of life.
Whereas Kayla’s household was in a position to repatriate her physique and maintain a burial, Monic’s stays have been by no means returned.
Our investigation discovered she was doubtless buried in a bit of Dubai’s Al Qusais Cemetery generally known as “The Unknown”. It options rows and rows of unmarked graves, sometimes thought to belong to migrants whose household could not repatriate their our bodies.
Monic and Kayla have been a part of a wider, unofficial pipeline connecting Uganda to the Gulf.
As Uganda wrestles with rising youth unemployment, shifting to work overseas – primarily within the Gulf states – has turn into an enormous trade that contributes $1.2bn (£885m) of tax income to the nation every year.
However these alternatives can carry a danger.
Mariam Mwiza, a Ugandan activist in opposition to exploitation, says she has helped rescue greater than 700 individuals from across the Gulf.
“We get circumstances of people that have been promised to work, to illustrate, in a grocery store. Then [that person] finally ends up bought as a prostitute,” she instructed us.
For Monic’s household, grief is now tangled with concern. Concern for different households who may undergo the identical loss they’ve, if nothing is completed.
“We’re all taking a look at Monica’s loss of life,” her relative Michael instructed us. “However who’s there for the women nonetheless alive? They’re nonetheless there. Nonetheless struggling.”
The BBC requested Charles “Abbey” Mwesigwa to answer all of the allegations made in our investigation. He denied operating an unlawful prostitution ring.
He mentioned: “These are all false allegations.
“I instructed you I’m only a get together one that invitations huge spenders on my tables, therefore making many women flock [to] my desk. That makes me know many women and that is it.”
He additionally mentioned: “[Monic] died along with her passport that means no-one was demanding her cash for taking her. Previous to her loss of life, I hadn’t seen her for over 4 to 5 weeks.
“I knew [Monic and Kayla] and [they] have been renting with totally different landlords. If no-one in each flats was arrested or any of the landlords, then there was a motive. Each incidents have been investigated by the Dubai police and perhaps they may help you.”
The BBC contacted Al Barsha Police Station to request to see the case recordsdata for Monic Karungi and Kayla Birungi. It didn’t reply to that request or to allegations Monica and Kayla’s deaths had not been correctly investigated.
The BBC was unable to see any toxicology reviews in relation to Monic Karungi, or converse to the owner of the condominium by which she was dwelling when she died.
- When you’ve got any info so as to add to this investigation please contact runako@bbc.co.uk
- Particulars of organisations providing details about or help after sexual abuse or with emotions of despair can be found at bbc.co.uk/actionline.
