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Nigeria must stop voodoo sex trafficking gangs smuggling young girls to Europe

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Earlier this month, Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) was forced to deny allegations it had hired witch doctors to help prevent young women being smuggled out of the country to work as prostitutes in Europe. While admitting the agency is attempting to engage with as many sections of society as possible in order to gain a better understanding of the role they play in the country’s massive problem with human trafficking and modern slavery, NAPTIP head of press Josiah Emerole claimed the organisation had merely spoken with witch doctors in an effort to dissuade them from placing voodoo curses on people smugglers’ victims. Juju oaths are routinely used by traffickers to make their victims believe they or a member of their family will come to some sort of serious harm or die if they fail to comply with their captors’ demands. Where the NAPTIP once arrested priests known to have carried out these types of rituals, the agency now seeks to “sensitise” them to the harm they cause by brainwashing trafficking victims, Emerole said. Whether or not this new approach will be of any benefit whatsoever remains to be seen, but what is clear is that the Nigerian government’s attempts to stop vulnerable young women being trafficked out of the country after being put through juju rituals have so far failed spectacularly.

For years now, law enforcement authorities across Europe and beyond have reported rescuing petrified young Nigerian women who have been put through horrific juju rituals before being smuggled into brothels and forced to sell their bodies for sex. Rather than declining, evidence suggests the rate at which traffickers are abusing these women is on the rise, fuelled in no small part by the ongoing Mediterranean migrant crisis. Only last week, police in Spain and the UK said they had arrested 12 people suspected of being members of an international human trafficking network that used juju magic to control the young women it exploited. The gang is said to have pulled out victims’ pubic hair and forced them to eat raw chicken as part of voodoo rituals before trafficking them to brothels mostly situated in Italy and Spain. No more than a few weeks earlier, Spanish police rescued 16 Nigerian women who had been trafficked into the country before being forced to work as prostitutes. Prior to being taken from their home country, the women were reported to have been put through ritualistic juju ceremonies, during which they were made to believe they would suffer death, insanity or serious illness if they disobeyed their captors, refused to sell their bodies or went to the police.

The fear these voodoo rituals instil is so strong and pervasive that victims have been known to escape protective custody after being rescued in a bid to return to their captors, petrified that breaking the oath they had sworn would damn either them or their close family members to death. The hold the curses have on victims can also make it incredibly difficult for police to build a case against members of people smuggling gangs, who use juju magic to convince the vulnerable young women they exploit that cooperating with authorities will result the oath they have sworn being broken. As a consequence, it is rare for members of Nigerian trafficking gangs to be brought to justice in Europe and other parts of the world in which they operate.

In a rare example of juju traffickers being successfully convicted, a UK court jailed two people smugglers for a total of 10 years for forcing their victims to work as prostitutes in November 2014. Lizzy Idahosa and her partner Jackson Omoruyi were found guilty of inciting prostitution and money laundering at Cardiff Crown Court. One of the pairs’ victims explained how she was cut with a razor, forced to drink dirty water and made to eat snakes and snails during a juju ritual designed to make her believe she would suffer illness, madness, infertility or death if she failed to comply with her captors’ demands. In August 2016, a Dutch court sentenced a Nigerian-born man to seven years behind bars after convicting him of leading an international prostitution ring that used voodoo magic to control its victims. Peter Kwame S and his associates trafficked underage Nigerian girls to the Netherlands after putting them through voodoo rituals in Nigeria to make them swear an oath that they would not go to the police.

The infrequency with which members of Nigerian juju trafficking gangs are brought to justice in Europe and beyond sadly makes these examples remarkable, and in no way indicative of the scale of the problem. In 2016, the International Organisation for Migration estimated that 80% of Nigerian teenage girls and young women who arrived in Italy that year were victims of sex trafficking and exploitation. It is likely many of them were destined to be transported onto brothels in other EU countries. While European law enforcement agencies work hard to safeguard young women and girls unfortunate enough to fall victim to these gangs, the very nature of the “curses” placed upon them make it very difficult to bring traffickers to justice. As such, it is now vital that greater efforts are made to stop the problem at source. Instead of attempting to “sensitise” witch doctors to the harm they are causing by placing juju curses on traffickers’ victims, Nigerian lawmakers should concentrate their efforts on pursing the prosecution of everybody involved in this barbaric trade at their end.

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Oligarques russes et pétrole vénézuélien

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Des oligarques russes et vénézuéliens sont accusés de blanchiment d’argent, de trafic de pétrole et de corruption

Le Tribunal fédéral de New York accuse sept personnes d’êtres responsables de contrebande d’essence et du blanchiment de dizaines de millions de dollars. Ces personnes sont aussi accusées d’avoir tenté d’acheter des technologies militaires états-uniennes sensibles. Parmi ce groupe, on trouve notamment des oligarques russes et vénézuéliens. Ces derniers s’organisaient notamment pour contourner les sanctions mises en place par les États-Unis. Ils passaient par des entreprises-écrans hongkongaises, des livraisons d’argent liquide massives, des pétroliers fantômes et l’utilisation de cryptomonnaies pour obscurcir leurs activités.

Le blanchiment d’argent des oligarques russes et vénézuéliens

Cette affaire vient souligner également l’importance des liens entre oligarques russes et leurs alliés vénézuéliens. Les deux pays étant interdit de participer au système financier occidental, les riches des deux pays s’entendent pour protéger leurs fortunes. Au cœur de cette conspiration, on trouve deux Russes : Yury Orekhov et Artem Uss. Le premier travaillait pour une grande entreprise d’aluminium approuvée par les États-Unis. Le deuxième est le fils d’un riche gouverneur allié du Kremlin. Ces derniers sont partenaires dans une entreprise d’équipements industriels allemande basée à Hambourg. Cette entreprise est accusée d’avoir joué un rôle important dans le contournement des sanctions imposées après l’invasion de la Crimée dès 2014. Les deux hommes ont été arrêtés, l’un en Italie et l’autre en Allemagne.

De l’autre côté, on trouve Juan Fernando Serrano, le PDG de la start-up Treseus, basée à Dubaï, en Italie et en Espagne. Les communications des trois hommes, interceptées par la police, illustrent leurs connexions avec des partenaires puissants. Serrano serait le contact pour des oligarques vénézuéliens, dont un proche du vice-président. Cette personne est aussi recherchée par les États-Unis pour corruption et blanchiment d’argent. Aucun des partenaires des trois hommes n’a pourtant été inquiété, leurs liens n’ayant pu être prouvés.

Argent liquide et sociétés-écrans

Le pétrole vénézuélien est ici au cœur de l’affaire. Ce dernier se vend en moyenne 40 % en dessous du prix du marché et doit suivre des circonvolutions compliquées pour être exporté. Il est par exemple impossible d’effectuer un simple transfert bancaire et l’argent doit donc trouver d’autres chemins. Les trois personnes sont par exemple accusées d’avoir acheté un pétrolier plein de pétrole vénézuélien pour la somme de 33 millions de dollars. Le paiement est passé par une entreprise de Dubaï, puis par des comptes-écrans à Hong Kong, en Australie et en Angleterre. Des documents ont aussi été falsifiés et la cargaison était censée être des petits pois et du riz. Cependant, l’essentiel des transactions semble être fait en liquide.

La discussion entre les trois hommes montre que des millions de dollars en liquide ont été déposés en personne à une banque de Moscou. Cette même banque était possédée par l’industrie pétrolière vénézuélienne. Elle a longtemps servi de lien principal pour les échanges entre les deux pays. Certains paiements discutés parlaient aussi d’effectuer des paiements simultanés en liquide à une banque du Panama puis un virement à Caracas. Enfin, les criminels semblent avoir une prédilection pour la cryptomonnaie Tethers. Celle-ci base sa valeur sur des monnaies stables comme le dollar. La complexité de ces transactions et les efforts mis en œuvre par ces criminels en col blanc rendent difficile de stopper les responsables, sans compter que ces derniers opèrent dans des pays qui les soutiennent.

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Crooked vendors exploiting flaw in eBay’s feedback system to con buyers into purchasing bogus and dangerous items

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crooked vendors exploiting flaw in eBay’s feedback system

Buyers on eBay are being duped into purchasing substandard and counterfeit products due to a flaw in the online auction platform’s seller feedback system, according to an investigation conducted by UK consumer group Which?

The watchdog found that dishonest vendors can take advantage of these flaws by linking positive reviews of genuine products manufactured by companies such as Apple and Samsung to fake and low-quality items.

Which? found that crooked sellers are able to link thousands of positive reviews to eBay listings they have nothing to do with.

The organisation discovered that real reviews can be associated with fake products that are potentially dangerous, such as counterfeit mobile phone chargers that can pose a fire risk.

Sellers are able to do this by using “product IDs” associated with genuine items when adding their products to eBay, subsequently benefitting from the positive reviews those items have attracted.

The system is intended to make the process of listing products on eBay quicker and easier by allowing sellers to pull information from similar items that have a linked product ID.

As part of its investigation, Which? purchased 20 bogus Apple and Samsung accessories such as chargers and USB cables that were supposed to be official and shared the same reviews as products manufactured by the two technology firms

Calling for online ecommerce platforms to be held accountable for flaws in their seller feedback systems that allow dishonest vendors to pull the wool over buyers’ eyes, Head of Home Products and Services at Which? Natalie Hitchins said: “Our investigation has uncovered yet another example of online reviews being manipulated to mislead people.

“eBay’s product review system is confusing for consumers and could even direct them towards counterfeit or dangerous products sold by unscrupulous sellers.

“Online reviews influence billions of pounds of consumer spending each year.

“The [UK Competition and Markets Authority] must now investigate how fake and misleading reviews are duping online shoppers, taking the strongest possible action against sites that fail to tackle the problem.”

Responding to the findings of Which?’s investigation eBay said in a statement: “The research does not fully consider that there are distinctions between product reviews (which provide buyers with a holistic review of the same product), and seller feedback (which can be used to see specific reviews of a seller’s performance and may reflect the item’s condition).”

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that US politicians had called on lawmakers to hold ecommerce companies such as eBay and Amazon to account if they fail to prevent third-party vendors selling counterfeit or substandard products on their platforms.

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Major ‘lover boy’ prostitution gang broken up by coalition of European law enforcement agencies

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major ‘lover boy’ prostitution gang

A Romanian human trafficking and prostitution network that used the “lover boy” method to entrap young women before forcing them into sex work has been broken up a coalition of European law enforcement agencies.

The lover boy method, also known as the “Romeo pimp” method, involves young men seducing victims with the objective of coercing them into prostitution.

Lover boy traffickers groom their victims to believe they have entered into a serious romantic relationship before using emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse to intimidate them into working in the sex services industry.

Investigators from Spain, Romania, the Czech Republic and several other European nations were involved in the operation that resulted in the dismantling of the gang, which is said to have groomed and exploited at least 10 young women by forcing them to work as prostitutes.

The operation resulted in the arrest of 14 people in Romania and Spain, the safeguarding of 10 trafficking victims, and the confiscation of a number of items, including a quantity of cash, jewellery, expensive vehicles and several electronic devices.

In total, the agencies taking part in the effort raided 16 properties in the Czech Republic, Romania and Spain.

Having groomed their victims, Romanian members of the network would develop manipulative dependent relationships with the young women they targeted before forcing them into sex work.

Once under the traffickers’ control, victims would be abused and drugged before being sold onto other members of the network for as much as €6,000 ($6,632) each.

The women would then be moved between locations and countries on a regular basis as part of the gang’s efforts to avoid the attention of police.

Profits made by the network were laundered through the purchase of property, expensive jewellery and high-value cars.

Ongoing investigations into the network’s activities are focussed on the theory that it was working in cooperation with another gang.

Enquires have already resulted in the identification of more than 40 additional women who fell victim to the two criminal organisations.

In a statement, Europol said: “Europol facilitated the information exchange between the participating countries, provided coordination support and analysed operational information against Europol’s databases to give leads to investigators.

“Europol conducted a financial analysis based on the information provided which highlighted the extension of the criminal activity of the group and the presence and flow of illicit profits to other jurisdictions.”

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