Police rescue Nigerian girls sold for sex

LONDON: Spanish police have rescued 39 Nigerian girls and women from a sex trafficking ring who kept them in squalid cavelike houses and forced them into prostitution after threatening them with black magic, Europol announced yesterday.

The operation, carried out with British and Nigerian law enforcement agencies, led to the arrests of 89 people including a wellknown Nigerian DJ, according to Europol.

The Nigerian crime ring was linked to the Eiye Confraternity — a network that Spanish police have previously compared to the mafioso in Chicago in the 1930s.

The victims, many aged under 18, were believed to have undergone voodoo ‘‘juju’’ rituals in Nigeria to force them to comply with orders, Britain’s National Crime Agency said. — Reuters