A Nigerian prostitution network, partly based on the Côte d'Azur and which exploited dozens of women, was dismantled "last week" after more than a year of investigation, we learned Wednesday from the police.
Of the ten "heads of networks" identified, eight people were arrested "last week", six in France and two in Spain, under a European arrest warrant.
These five men and five women "routed" and "headed" the victims or "collected the money to send it to Nigeria," detailed Elvire Arrighi, head of the Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings ( OCRTEH).
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In France, six of these people were indicted, in particular for “trafficking in human beings in an organized gang”.
Five of them were imprisoned, the other placed under judicial supervision as part of an investigation opened in Nice.
In all, more than thirty victims, young adult women from Nigeria, have been identified.
They "prostituted themselves on the public highway in Nice or Cannes" and "lived in slums", added Elvire Arrighi.
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The case starts in June 2020 when a "victim" files a complaint in Nice, claiming to be "under the yoke of a network of pimps for several years", a network which recruited her in Nigeria while she was working in a sewing workshop.
She was first exploited in Italy "thinking of going to study fashion", then fled to the south of France before being "caught up by the network to which she owed 40,000 euros for her trip from Nigeria", a specified the head of OCRTEH.