Six members of a gang from Finland have been arrested by European police for trafficking offences.
The gang is reported to be involved in trafficking Nigerian women to Europe for sex.
The group worked in at least 15 countries, from Marbella in Spain, where the alleged ringleader was arrested.
They also operate in Finland and Sweden where a lot of their victims worked as prostitutes.
The EU’s police agency Europol said Police have seized almost €300 million in assets in four countries.
Bank accounts of the suspects have also been frozen in 12 different countries with their luxury cars, jewellery and about €30,000 in cash all seized.
The group also made some €40m in criminal profits since 2010.
Troubling trend
In 2018 members of another notorious Nigerian gang, trafficking women and girls into Europe for prostitution were arrested by police in Spain.
That operation led to the rescue of 39 women and girls who were smuggled in from Nigeria and sold into sex work.
The women and girls trafficked, according to Europol were kept in “squalid conditions in caves” and threatened with voodoo.
The victims were to work as prostitutes to pay off a 30,000 euro debt.
There is a high number of young people in Africa desperate to travel to Europe for better living conditions and often fall victim to people who exploit them after promising them goodies and jobs.
Just this year, Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency also revealed that as many as 20, 000 Nigerian women and girls had been trafficked to Mali to work as prostitutes.
These women and girls are reportedly stranded in Mali requiring help to escape from their traffickers and return home.
According to the anti-trafficking agency, the women and girls, most aged 16-30, were told they would be taken to Malaysia to work in hospitality.
They however found out that they were being taken to some west African countries to work as prostitutes.
Source: Africafeeds.com
