‘The oath she was solemnly required to take was to repay that money, £40,000, on pain of death if she did not,’ said Mr Ames.
‘This was what was known as a juju ceremony.’
She was driven to Lagos on September 12, 2011 and put on a plane to the UK, meeting Olayinka at Heathrow Airport.
Olayinka, calling himself ‘Mike’, checked her into the Marbella Hotel in Peckham, south London, and took away her money and passport.
She was next taken to the house of Obadiaru, an old friend of Beneditta’s, and kept there for a few weeks with no sign of a job or education.
Obadiaru’s son, who suffers from learning difficulties, groped her on the first night in the house in Brockley, southeast London.
But when she complained, Obadiaru allegedly told her: ‘What do you think you are here for?’
The woman was told she was being sent to Italy on October 3, 2011, and collected another false passport from Olayinka’s home.
‘It was then for the first time that this very young girl from a small village in Africa, miles away from home, realised she was about to be sent to Italy to be forced into prostitution’, Mr Ames said.
‘She came to that gradual realisation, and she suddenly remembered hearing conversations between some men and their girls in Italy.
‘She couldn’t speak Italian and there was no question of her being able to work in Italy in the normal sense.
‘She became very upset and fearful of what awaited her.’
The gang’s plan was thwarted by Italian immigration officials, who stopped the woman on an obviously forged passport at Milan Airport and sent her straight back to the UK.
After she was detained by immigration officials, the woman led them to the alleged identity factory in Osoba’s flat in South Bermondsey, southeast London, and laptops which had been used to make false documents by Olayinka.
Mr Ames said the National Crime Agency launched Operation Visionary after quizzing the woman ‘to penetrate and stop the activities of an organised crime group based in Africa and here in England, which has as its aim the trafficking of vulnerable young women from Nigeria to European countries, including Italy and France for the purpose of prostitution’
Oluwafemi, of South Bermondsey, southeast London, Olayinka, of Peckham Rye, southeast London, and Obadiaru, of Brockley, south London denied conspiracy to traffic a person to the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and conspiracy to traffic a person out of the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Oluwafemi, Olayinka, and Osoba, of South Bermondsey, southeast London, denied conspiracy to commit an offence of possessing false identity documents.
SOURCE: UK Daily Mail
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