LONDON — Mohamed al-Fayed, the late owner of Harrods department store, engaged over many years in widespread trafficking of dozens of women with whom he had sex, investigators told British lawmakers.
Many of the alleged victims, including young sales assistants from the Harrods shop floor, were transported to Fayed’s home and offices, at times by helicopter, where they were abused by the billionaire owner, according to a recent briefing by London’s Metropolitan Police, the Guardian reported Friday
Other alleged victims were taken to meet Fayed overseas. Fayed’s son Dodi dated Princess Diana and died with her in a car crash in 1997.
“The scale of potential trafficking in the Al Fayed case is deeply shocking,” Eleanor Lyons, Britain’s antislavery commissioner, said Friday in a statement to The Washington Post. “Trafficking does not have to mean crossing borders; it can happen within a city or even within a single building. In this case some of the potential trafficking took place solely within Harrods itself.”
Fayed, a self-made billionaire who immigrated from Egypt and delighted in the trappings of the English upper classes, died in 2023.
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