Three Albanian pimps have been jailed for up to 4.5 years by the appeal court in Amsterdam for their role in forcing six women from the Netherlands and the Czech Republic to work as prostitutes.

A fourth man was found not guilty of the charges. In 2013, a lower court found all four not guilty.

The court was told that the men had pretended to be in love with their victims and brought some of them to the Netherlands, where they were forced to work as prostitutes.

They were treated as ‘conveyor belts’ and told to earn €1,000 a day, the public prosecution department said. The pimps then laundered the money.