Ross Kemp: Extreme World ran for six series from 2011, taking viewers into some of the planet’s harshest and most volatile environments, but one interview subject moved the EastEnders star to tears
Ross Kemp once revealed how the “worst person” he ever met left him in tears
(Image: Ross Kemp: Extreme World/YouTube)
Ross Kemp once revealed how the “worst person” he ever met left him in tears after he candidly described a series of horrific acts that the individual had committed against children. Ross Kemp: Extreme World ran for six series from 2011, taking Sky One viewers into some of the planet’s harshest and most volatile environments, tackling topics such as conflict, the drug trade, extremism, and even witchcraft.
From street violence in Papua New Guinea, to the Colombian cocaine trade and the battle against ISIS, Ross travelled to some of the planet’s most perilous places and came face-to-face with people at the centre of these worlds.
You might assume that the Celebrity Traitors star would eventually take it all in his stride, but one horrifying encounter left him absolutely shaken: a meeting with a person he described as being “probably the worst man I ever met”.
In 2013, Ross was in India filming an episode about human traffickers for series three. He managed to secure an interview with a man known as Mr Khan, a trafficker who’d purportedly sold girls as young as 12.
He wrote in his 2023 book, Take Nothing for Granted: Tales from an Unexpected Life: “I’ve been angry before. But this was different. I sat there and I knew without a doubt that the world would be a better place without this man in it.”
Ross said the man who stepped out from the treeline wasn’t what he was expecting. He was “slender” and “young-looking”, wearing a baseball cap and rings.
“He started out by convincing girls from the village that he was going to marry them, then he’d take them to the cities – at which point he would sell them on. Seven years later, he said he now had a network of seventy-five people traffickers working under him.
“Despite more than twenty-five active investigations against him, he had never been charged with anything. When I asked how many girls he had trafficked, he said three or four thousand.
“As he described how they would go to poor communities and look for ‘real beauties’, I could feel my hands making themselves into fists. He described how the girls were auctioned to the highest bidder.”
Mr Khan claimed the highest price he’d received for a girl was £8,500, but denied ever selling a girl as young as nine. He did, however, admit to selling multiple 12-year-olds.
“He described how girls who tried to run away or ‘were trouble’ would be killed and buried in the country. He bribed the police to look the other way. When I asked him how many girls, he replied between four and five hundred.”
He said the man looked at the floor while he spoke, obscuring his face with his cap. To him, Ross claimed, the children were simply “numbers” or “merchandise”. Ross asked whether he intended to continue killing.
“He said, ‘If I’m having problems, I’ll have to carry on killing.’ And he looked sorry for himself and a tear rolled down his cheek. I could just about take everything up until that point, but I couldn’t take his self-pity. I told the fixer to get him out of my sight.”
Ross said it was one of the only times he’s cut an interview short and that his translator was left in shock. She cried as she explained what she was being told. “Afterwards, we both sat in tears”, Ross added.
