Trevor McIvor, 61, and Kanokporn Tanuchit, 42, were motivated entirely by greed, District Court Judge Ken Taylor said. The couple were the first New South Wales residents to be convicted and sentenced under a new sexual servitude law, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The victims testified that McIvor and his wife took away their passports and kept them locked up, either in the brothel in Fairfield or their house in Canley Vale in the Sydney suburbs. One woman described them in her diary as "bad people without conscience."

The women said that they worked as long as 18 hours a day with no days off.

One said that she serviced almost 1,200 clients in 10 months. Tanuchit pressured her to use the drug ice, crystal methamphetamine, telling her she was "fat and ugly."