'Voodoo' nurse Josephine Iyamu guilty of sex trafficking
A British hospital nurse, who used voodoo magic to enslave young
Nigerian girls and transport them to Europe for prostitution, was today
found guilty in the first case of its kind in the UK.
Josephine Iyamu, aka Madam Sandra, formerly of south London, used a
witch doctor to convince her victims they were under her control and
exploited them to fund a lavish lifestyle. The 53-year-old was a
ringleader of an international human trafficking crime network and lived
in a huge Nigerian mansion complete with a servants' quarters.
Iyamu charged each of her victims Euro 30,000 and Euro 38,000 to
arrange for their travel to Europe, profiting from more than Euro 15,000
from one victim alone via wire transfers and cash payments.
Iyamu's victims |
Iyamu would first make the vulnerable women undergo "Juju" ceremonies
which would involve them drinking blood containing worms and eating the
heart of a chicken.
Describing the ritual ceremony, an officer said:
They were given blood containing worms to drink.
A chicken was used to hit her naked body on the back and on the chest. She had to eat the heart of the chicken which had just been killed. And the priest would cut their skin and mouth with a razor blade.
Iyamu then took snippets of her victims' head and pubic hair and kept them in individualised packages and she told the girls: 'You have now eaten from the devil and if you do not pay, the devil will kill you.'
The ritual ceremony in Nigeria |
After the juju ritual, the victims would then be forced to endure an
arduous five-day journey to the Libyan coast. Sometimes, the journey saw
them shot at, ambushed, and gang-raped. They would then catch an
inflatable boat crammed with hundreds of people to Italy before being
moved into Germany to work as prostitutes.
Iyamu and her husband Efe Ali-Imaghodor, 60, were arrested at
Heathrow Airport on August 24 last year after traveling back from
Nigeria. Police found her in possession of seven mobile phones and more
than 30 SIM cards and this linked them to a German human trafficking
investigation. Officers also discovered a piece of paper detailing a
list of items needed as part of the "Juju" ceremonies and another with
telephone numbers of criminal associates.
Today, Iyamu was convicted by a jury of five counts of arranging to
facilitate travel of another person for exploitation following a trial
at Birmingham Crown Court. She was also found guilty of perverting the
course of justice after paying Nigerian police to arrest one of the
victims' relatives in a bid to stop the woman giving evidence against
them in the trial while both were in police custody in the UK.
Iyamu forced one of her victims to have an abortion in Italy after
being raped and impregnated on the journey, according to Kay Mellor, a
senior investigating officer at National Crime Agency (NCA).
Ms Mellor said:
Despite still bleeding, Madam Sandra told her that she had to start work as soon as possible, she needed to pay the extra Euro 500 to cover the cost of the abortion.
German police found text messages from Iyamu to her victim forcing
her to work as a prostitute while still bleeding from her operation.
Iyamu replied: "Time is dragging on. Pull your finger out!"
Following her conviction today, she will be sentenced on July 4.
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