Female people smuggler who used threat of WITCHCRAFT to force kids into sex trade to be jailed for 22 years
Franca Asemota used Heathrow as a hub to traffic at least 40 children into Europe
A WOMAN trafficking boss who forced scores of teenage orphans into the sex trade using the threat of witchcraft was jailed for 22 years today.
Nigerian, Franca Asemota, known to her victims as "Auntie Franca", used Heathrow as a hub to traffic at least 40 children and young adults into Europe.
The 38-year-old lured the girls, as young as 14 and mainly orphans from remote Nigerian villages, with promises of jobs and education.
She then used "witchcraft", threats and violence to force them in to the European sex trade and work in brothels, Isleworth Court heard.
After a four week trial, she was convicted of eight counts of conspiracy to traffic people into sexual exploitation, in respect of eight trips she made between Nigeria and the UK between in 2011 and 2012.
She was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
The racket was first exposed when Border Agency officials stopped two groups, in September and November 2011, travelling on false passports.
Although she was not arrested at the time, Asemota's ticket had been booked at the same time, at the same travel agent in Lagos, and she was sat next to the group on the plane.
Investigators then linked Asemota to at least six other "successful trafficking trips" and the kidnapping of two girls who had been placed in foster care on the south coast.
Paul Cabin, prosecuting, previously told the court how three victims were first stopped at Heathrow in September, 2011, and a further two were also to give detailed accounts of the smuggling.
They all traveled on fake passports that claimed they were over the age of 18.
Mr Cabin said: "They all came from remote Nigerian villages and had all been told that they were going to be educated, trained and employed in France.
"They all had difficult histories - for example, some were orphans. One was a runaway from an attempted forced marriage.
"They and their families and guardians are told that educational and work opportunities exist in Europe for them.
"Initially, therefore, the girls go with the gang voluntarily.
"Their compliance from that point on is secured by a mixture of threats, to themselves and their families back in their villages, the use of 'Ju-Ju' rituals and sexual violence, including in one case rape."
He added: "All but one reported at the time that they had been trafficked by a female who accompanied them on the aircraft from Lagos, known variously as Auntie Franca or Violet."
It was only when they had traveled "a long way from their villages were they told they were really destined for a life of prostitution," he said.
The "successful" trips all took place within a few months of each other at the end of 2011, and involved 40 victims.
Investigators spent around three years trying to locate Asemota until they successfully tracked her down to Nigeria on March 25, 2015, and she was arrested and extradited.
They located her after two girls, who had been placed with foster parents in 2012 in Worthing by the immigration authorities, were kidnapped.
Mr Cabin said: "They settled in well and both went to a nearby secondary school.
"They had both been detained at HMP Bronzefield after their arrests and may have met each other there, but obviously from this point on they were in close contact and became friends.
"On April 6, 2012, both girls were reported missing by their foster carers."
Both planned to go shopping but switched off their phones and failed to return home.
Five days later one was returned to the UK from Spain after travelling on a fake passport and taken into care.
In interview the girl explained that on the day of their disappearance her friend had been taking a lot of phone calls before they were picked up by two men in a car.
One of these men was Odosa Usiobaifo, who is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence after being jailed in 2013.
They were ordered to memorise their new names and birthdays, and told: "Your new life is at stake if you don't get it right."
The other girl who was taken to Spain feared she would never escape until she contacted, Amicale du Nid, a French charity working with prostitutes, in July 2014.
Five of her victims gave evidence against her during the trial. One had been rescued from prostitution in Montpellier, France, during a joint operation by Immigration Enforcement and the NCA.
Jose Olivares-Chandler, defending, said Asemota did no wrongdoing and had a difficult upbringing.
He said: "She was a victim of Juju herself, as well as trafficking and prostitution prior to these offences.
"She has a young daughter aged three years old. That daughter will now grow up to be an adult without knowing her mother."
Jailing Asemota for a total of 22 years Judge Robin Johnson told her: "[The crimes] amount to the wholesale trafficking of girls and women from Nigeria to Europe for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
"You were responsible for trafficking some three dozen girls and women.
"They were poor, impressionable and often desperate."
Judge Robinson told the court one of the victims made the organisation up to 1000 Euros a day, seven days a week.
The case was part of Operation Hudson, an Immigration Enforcement-led investigation targeting a number organised crime groups suspected of trafficking young women, via London, for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
Operation Hudson has already secured the conviction of two men involved in the trafficking network.
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