The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has arrested three suspected trans-border human traffickers in Osun.

Effeh Ekrika, NAPTIP zonal commander, told journalists on Wednesday in Osogbo that the suspects were members of a syndicate that specialised in recruiting young girls for prostitution.

Mr Ekrika said the suspects were arrested at a motor park in Ejigbo, Ejigbo local government area, on Monday while waiting to receive five girls to be trafficked to Ghana for prostitution.

He said the NAPTIP commander in Taraba hinted the Osogbo command about the suspects’ plans, and undercover agents were asked to play along with traffickers.

“The undercover agents were asked by the traffickers to go to Lagos to meet the driver of the madam they will be working for in a brothel in Ghana and who will also transport them to Ghana,” said the NAPTIP zonal commander. “The agents then travelled to Lagos on Sunday, only for them to be redirected back to Ibadan before they were again redirected to Osogbo.”

Mr Ekrika added, “It was when they got to Osogbo that they were asked to board a bus to Ejigbo, so they could exit the country through the Ejigbo border. It was at the Ejigbo border park that NAPTIP, in collaboration with the Department of State Security officials, arrested members of the syndicate that turned up to pick the girls.”

Mr Ekrika advised Nigerians wanting to travel out of the country to do so legally so as not to fall into the hands of human traffickers. He said an investigation was ongoing to arrest other syndicate members for prosecution.

One of the undercover agents said three of her sisters were trafficked on September 7 to Ghana and forced into prostitution.

According to her, a woman in her village in Taraba recruited her sisters and some other girls for the traffickers.

She said one of her sisters trafficked to Ghana for prostitution called her and informed her of the situation they found themselves in.

The undercover agent said she used the mobile number her sister used to call her to establish contact with the syndicate and that she was also interested in the prostitution business in Ghana.

She said at that stage, she informed NAPTIP, and she was used as bait to arrest the human traffickers, revealing that the woman responsible for recruiting the girls in her village had been arrested.

According to her, the woman’s daughter also works as a prostitute in Ghana and is the one sending money to recruit more girls from the village into the prostitution business. 

(NAN)