Trafficking in persons, enslavement, kidnapping, exploitation of prostitution and aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

These are the crimes for which the four Nigerian nationals - affiliated to the Nigerian Mafia-type association Black Ax - arrested by the agents of the State Police must answer.

The operation of the Police, born from the investigations conducted by the Foreign Crime and Prostitution Section of the Palermo Mobile Squad, coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, was born from the complaint of a Nigerian girl, accompanied by a compatriot Pentecostal pastor, to whom the victim had turned to escape from his tormentors.

THE COMPLAINT - The young woman said she was segregated in her country of origin by a group of men belonging to Black Ax and managed to free herself thanks to the intercession of a compatriot, behind the commitment to go to Italy as a " slave "of that group.

For this reason she had been subjected to voodoo rites promising to return 15 thousand euros, a sum necessary to reach our country illegally. In Palermo she would have been forced into prostitution under the threat of death and violence, and the money was handed over for the repayment of the "debt". The woman managed to escape from her alleged tormentors by turning to the shepherd, who was himself then threatened.

The measure was carried out in collaboration with the Taranto mobile squad, as three of the recipients of the restrictive measure were currently resident in the Apulian town.

(Unioneonline / D)

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