NHS nurse used voodoo to terrify slave ring women into prostitution
AN NHS nurse who used ‘voodoo’ magic to traffic Nigerian women to Europe to work as prostitutes was convicted yesterday in a landmark case.
Josephine Iyamu secretly ran an international human trafficking ring from her two-bedroom flat in south-east London.
The 51-year-old Liberian immigrant was given British citizenship in 2009 having been allowed to stay in the UK due to her nursing qualifications.
She was officially only earning £14,500 a year as an NHS agency nurse.
Yet she splashed out on a £400,000 home in Bermondsey and a £100,000 mansion in Nigeria complete with servants’ quarters, and she enjoyed a lavish lifestyle flying to Europe just to buy £700 designer shoes with the profits of her lucrative trafficking operation.
Iyamu used a powerful witch doctor to terrify her victims who were lured from their homes in Nigeria with the promise of a better life in the UK.
In elaborate voodoo Juju ceremonies in their homeland, the women aged 24 to 30 were beaten naked with bloody chicken carcasses, forced to eat chicken hearts and drink blood containing worms before being forced to take oaths that bound their loyalty to her on pain of death. Iyamu then took snippets of her victims’ hair and told the girls: ‘You have now eaten from the devil and if you do not pay, the devil will kill you.’
Five women were made to pay Iyamu, whom they knew as Madam Sandra, fees of up to £33,000 for their passage to the UK. The victims were forced to endure an arduous five-day journey to the Libyan coast – which saw them being shot at, ambushed and gang raped.
They were then loaded on to an inflatable boat crammed with hundreds of people travelling to Italy before being moved into Germany to work as prostitutes to pay Iyamu back.
One of her victims was forced to have an abortion in Italy after being raped by the traffickers and then Iyamu charged her £440 for the procedure.
Yesterday she became the first person to be convicted under Modern Slavery Act laws passed in 2015, allowing prosecutions of British citizens for sexual trafficking which took place overseas.
She was found guilty of five counts of arranging or facilitating travel for sexual exploitation after a tenweek trial. She was also convicted of perverting the course of justice.
German police identified Iyamu as the ringleader of a Nigerian human trafficking operation after a brothel owner in Germany reported suspicions over one of his workers’ passports last January.
Officers alerted the National Crime Agency who launched an unprecedented investigation into the offending even though it took place outside the UK.
Iyamu was arrested at Heathrow Airport on August 24 last year after travelling back from Nigeria. Police found seven mobile phones and more than 30 SIM cards linking her to the German brothel workers.
Officers also discovered a note listing items needed for the ‘Juju’ ceremonies. Iyamu was taken into custody and was secretly recorded from prison arranging to pay a corrupt Nigerian police officer to arrest the relatives of one of her victims in a bid to stop the woman giving evidence against her.
After her capture, the NCA liaised with the Nigerian authorities to set up a video-link to a priest in Nigeria who performed a black magic revocation ceremony freeing the women from the spell cast at Iyamu’s orders. Prosecutor Simon Davis told Birmingham Crown Court: ‘The debts incurred by the women were enforced through fear.
‘Iyamu and others involved with her were willing to put these women at risk of serious injury and/or death as they made their journey from Nigeria to Europe.’
Judge Richard Bond said: ‘This is the first case under the new 2015 act whereby people have been trafficked from one country into another country. This is going to set a precedent when it comes to sentence.’
NCA operations manager Kay Mellor said: ‘Josephine Iyamu is a calculating individual who used her apparent status as a rich, powerful and influential lady to intimidate and manipulate vulnerable Nigerian women.
‘With zero regard for their safety and wellbeing, she sent them via dangerous routes to Germany and forced them to work in brothels to fund her own lifestyle.
‘To her, these women were … merely a commodity which she could exploit to generate income for herself.’ Iyamu will be sentenced on Wednesday.
‘If you do not pay, the devil will kill you’