Spanish police say they have broken
up a ring that smuggled in women from Nigeria and forced them into
street prostitution by burning them with irons and using voodoo rituals.
The gang tortured the women and scared them with curses to force them on to the streets.
Six people, including one woman believed to be a ringleader- were arrested after one of the women alerted authorities.
Curse: A voodoo practitioner dances during the Voodoo Day celebrations in Ouidah, Benin
'The control exercised over women was total, involving verbal threats as
well as physical violence and various voodoo ceremonies to terrorise
them,' police said in a statement.
'The ring caused them serious injury through bites or by using an iron to cause second-degree burns.'
The ring allegedly recruited women in Benin City, a run-down Nigerian
port, reported Sky News.
Jailed: Osezua Osolase, 42, preyed on poverty-stricken Nigerian orphans
Most of the women were vulnerable struggling to raise children because their husbands and fathers had died.
The gang transported the women over land to Morocco.
From there they were smuggled them
on to small wooden boats and taken into Spain.
They were forced to work as
street prostitutes in Barcelona and Malaga.
Spanish police have swooped several times in past years on similar prostitution rings that used the threat of voodoo curses.
Often
the victims are taken to shrines ad told to leave items behind - they
are told this gives the voodoo pirests power to harm them from afar.
They
are instructed they need to pay their debts and forced to join a
prostitution ring - the women fear breaking their promise will hold
catastrophic consequences for both them and their families.
Sex gangs often use a form of witchcraft or juju to scare their 'slaves' into working for them.
Last
year, a Nigerian people smuggler who used witchcraft rituals to force
children to work as sex slaves was jailed for 20 years in Britain,
Osezua Osolase, 42, tricked poverty-stricken Nigerian orphans into travelling to the UK with the promise of a better life.
But the young victims were raped, sexually abused and subjected to voodoo-style rituals by a child trafficking ring.
Osolase, the linchpin of a multi-million pound global sex trafficking ring, used 'juju' magic to control his victims.
He told the teenage girls they would die or never bear children if they tried to escape or revealed what had happened to them.
La Rambla street, Barcelona: The gang
transported the women over land to Morocco. From there they were
smuggled them on to small wooden boats and taken into Spain
dailymail.co.uk
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