The Italian police have arrested a Nigerian woman for allegedly forcing young women and girls who arrive from Nigeria, into prostitution by using voodoo locally know as ‘juju,’ as a threat.
The police in Italy confirmed that the suspect who is believed to be the Madam of a sex trafficking ring was arrested in the Puglia province of Foggia on Tuesday, February 17, 2023.
Town Crier News gathered that her arrest was carried out in a combined operation by the Flying squad police in the Sicilian city of Siracusa, and the police in Foggia since the Nigerian woman lives in Foggia.
The arrest warrant was issued by a preliminary investigations judge (GIP) on February 8 in Catania, Sicily.
Information gathered from investigators, said the suspect who is in pre-trial custody, alleged to have organised a prostitution ring, recruiting young women in Nigeria and forcing them to work a prositutes.
According to police, the young women and girls were forced into prostitution using deceit and voodoo rituals, with death threats against the victims and their families.
The suspect allegedly convinced the victims to flee detention scenters after their arrival in Italy and to work for her by intimidating them through juju rites (also known as voodoo rites).
The Nigerian citizen faces charges including human trafficking, enslavement, aggravated by the fact that some of her alleged victims were minors, as well as threatening their lives and physical integrity by inducing them to travel from Nigeria to Italy through a perilous Mediterranean crossing, under the control of criminals who abused them, investigative sources said.
She is also accused of contributing to commit a crime organized by a transnational organised criminal group, aiding and abetting illegal immigration, sex trafficking and money laundering.
The investigation, coordinated by DDA, an anti-mafia investigators in Catania, started after a young Nigerian woman landed at the commercial port of Augusta (Sicily) in July 2016 and told authorities that she had travelled by bus from Nigeria to Libya and then crossed the Mediterranean to reach Italy by taking on a debt of 30,000 in “travel expenses”.
During her period of “detention” in Libya, the woman said she had learned that she would be forced to work as a prostitute in and that she had been physically and mentally abused by the men watching her.
After her arrival in Italy, she asked police for help, investigative sources said.