Josephine Iyamu forced the women to swear oaths to hand over money to her during "juju" ceremonies.
Iyamu, 51, formerly of Bermondsey, was convicted of five counts of arranging or facilitating travel for s#xual exploitation at Birmingham Crown Court.
Jurors also found her guilty of perverting the course of justice.
The rituals saw the women forced to eat chicken hearts, drink blood containing worms, and have powder rubbed into cuts, the court heard.
Iyamu is the first person to be convicted under Modern Slavery Act laws passed in 2015, allowing prosecutions of British citizens for overseas sexual trafficking.
She was born in Liberia, but became a British citizen in 2009 having been allowed to stay in the UK due to her nursing qualifications.
Her husband, 60-year-old Efe Ali-Imaghodor, was acquitted of doing acts intending to pervert the course of justice.
Psychological control
Iyamu declared a modest income of around £14,500 in 2016/17 from her work as an NHS agency nurse, the court heard.
But after her arrest last year investigators found she was able to afford to spend thousands on air travel and a large home in Benin City, Nigeria.
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| PHOTO BY NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY ----HER HOUSE IN BENIN |
Prosecutor Simon Davis said by performing rituals Iyamu gained psychological control over the women.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Iyamu had "enlisted the help of a voodoo priest" to put the women through a "juju" ceremony which was "designed to exert control" over them.
The victims and their families were threatened with serious harm if they broke their oath to Iyamu, according to the NCA.
The court heard Iyamu was "willing to put the women at risk of serious injury and or death as they made their journey from Nigeria to Europe".
They were too afraid to challenge her or fail to pay her back tens of thousands of Euros she charged them to be trafficked into Germany, the court was told.
Opening the case, Mr Davis said: "The debts incurred by the women were enforced through fear.
"Each of the women were put through what is known to some as a voodoo ceremony."
Iyamu will be sentenced on Wednesday.
from BBC
Her face self na voodooo. I am not surprised at all. Wicked woman
ReplyDeleteThe girls should be brought to court too and asked if they were forced to take the oath under duress,who introduced them to the woman in the first place,did they agree to her terms and conditions before being caught and assuming they were not caught would they have followed thru with her plan to work as prostitutes?the girls should be jailed too for seeking the easy way out instead.when Kanye was saying modern day slavery is by choice everyone was castigating him but fail to think deeply and are quick to judge him,were the girls forcefully taken from their house?NO,were they kidnapped?No,they went into the oath taking ritual with their eyes wide open and their brain fully receptive and calculating the gains after the service year is over,this is a cool business plan and they all or rather we all have a choice either to patronize her or not,let us teach our girl child that prostitution is not the easy way out.Hard work pave the way to unimaginable success.
ReplyDeleteMy dear, most of them know they are going to do prostitution.They know jare.
DeleteEnjoy your stay in prison.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm!! Naija I hail oooooo
ReplyDeleteTHINGS ARE HAPPENING HMMMM!!!!!
ReplyDelete