Operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) have finally cracked, and arrested five female members of a trans-Atlantic prostitution syndicate, who specialized in sending Nigerian girls to Dubai for prostitution.
CEOAfrica source gathered that the syndicate had at innumerable times successfully lured unsuspecting Nigerian girls to Dubai and forced them into prostitution against their will.
It was also gathered that the victims, who were often young girls, girls were forced to strip naked and their nudity videotaped and kept as an insurance, to be used to blackmail them into submission by their tormentors, often referred to as ‘madams’.
The suspects were identified as 25-year-old Blessing Gabriel (who is the prime suspect), 29-year-old Precious Ejiro Owoh, 25-year-old Rose Gabriel, 33-year-old Priscilla Effiong Bassey a.k.a Prisca and 38-year-old Terry Homuere Smooth.
NAPTIP said the syndicate was behind two of such videos which went viral some weeks back on different social media platforms, which showed two naked girls, promising a woman that they would never run away with her money.
The video also recorded them where they were forced to take an oath, swearing that calamity would befall them if they fail to keep to their promise.
Confirming the arrests, NAPTIP Assistant Director, Head, Press and Public Relations, Mr. Josiah Emerole, said that NAPTIP was already working with Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) and an international agency to arrest other fleeing madams in Dubai.
Emerole said NAPTIP had to step in as Nigeria’s focal agency in the fight against human trafficking and swung into action in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, both locally and internationally, to fish out these criminals and their agents in Nigeria and to rescue the victims.
He said, “Early August 2015, the media, especially the social media was awash with nude visuals of two of our citizens, Ann and Chisom, filmed and uploaded by some of our unpatriotic citizens engaged in trafficking of girls from Nigeria to Dubai, the United Arab Emirate for sexual exploitation.”
