Former security guard Osezua Osolase faces jail when he is sentenced on Monday for tricking impoverished young Nigerian girls into travelling to Britain before farming them out as sex workers for up \u20ac70,000 a time to continental gangs.<\/p>\n
Police identified flight records and forged passport records to show that he recruited 28 girls and escorted many of them abroad over a 15-month period from 2010.<\/p>\n
But Osolase boasted to his victims that he had been running the scam for more than a decade.
\nOsolase deliberately targeted some of the most vulnerable girls in the world \u2013 orphaned, ill-educated and homeless \u2013 and brought them to Britain where he kept them captive.<\/p>\n
The 42-year-old ensured their obedience by binding the young girls to him with \u201cjuju\u201d rituals \u2013 a powerful force in parts of Nigeria \u2013 that left girls fearing that they would die if they ran away or spoke out against him.<\/p>\n
But in a major breakthrough for police, officers traced three of their victims \u2013 aged 14, 16, and 17 at the time \u2013 who were prepared to give evidence after they were stopped by authorities while travelling to the European cities on false travel documents.<\/p>\n
One of the girls told how she was taken to a house of witchcraft in Lagos.<\/p>\n
The teenager was given a blood-like mixture told to bathe in it and wrap sodden cloth around her.<\/p>\n
A priest cut hair from her armpits, some of her finger and toenails and took blood from her hand.<\/p>\n
The woman was told that the body parts taken in the ritual would be used to find and kill her if ever she tried to run away.<\/p>\n
The majority of Osolase\u2019s victims were trafficked to Italy, Spain and France where there is a high demand for West African women to work in the sex trade, police said.<\/p>\n
However, detectives believe that he funnelled his wealth back to Nigeria and had no trappings of wealth at his home in Northfleet, Kent.<\/p>\n
Detective Inspector Eddie Fox said: \u201cOsolase led these girls to believe a better life awaited them in the UK, he preyed on vulnerable girls who had no one to care for them and would not be missed.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuju is a well established belief but Osolase corrupted it in a bid to gain control and bend the wills of his victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe exploited the girls and took advantage of the fact they had nobody. They were scared, in an unfamiliar country and felt they had no other option but to do as they were told.\u201d<\/p>\n
Osolase was convicted on five counts of human trafficking, one count of rape and one count of sexual activity with a child.<\/p>\n
He was cleared of five other charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former security guard Osezua Osolase faces jail when he is sentenced on Monday for tricking impoverished young Nigerian girls into travelling to Britain before farming them out as sex workers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n