British airports such as Gatwick are increasingly used as entry points to the European Union by Nigerian trafficking gangs seeking alternatives to perilous Mediterranean Sea crossings, Spanish police have warned. BBC News quoted a crime squad officer in Barcelona as saying his team had bust a notorious Nigerian crime organisation running a network of trafficked prostitutes across the city.
The gang, Supreme Eiye Confraternity (SEC), also "using forged documents and passports to fly its Nigerian victims into places like Gatwick," Xavier Cortes, head of anti-trafficking at Catalonia police, said in a BBC interview.
The number of people identified as potential victims of human trafficking in Britain rose by 21 per cent to 3,309 in 2014, the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) said last year. The nationality of the victims was known in only 2,100 cases of which nearly 9 percent were Nigerian, the agency's data showed. Below is a special report by BBC:
"The world of Nigeria's sex trafficking 'Air Lords'"
Last year, the BBC's Sam Piranty was given access by the Catalan police, Mossos D'Esquadra, to an investigation into a Nigerian sex-trafficking gang. He spoke to traffickers and women rescued from sexual slavery before filming an early morning raid in November, which led to 23 arrests. He also discovered that the gang is now using London as a gateway into Europe.
It's 08:00 in the Catalan Police Headquarters on the outskirts of Barcelona and Xavi Cortes, head of the anti-trafficking unit, waits patiently for his 22 teams to confirm they are in position. Finally, he gives the order.
Two-hundred-and-fifty officers quietly climb out of their police vans. Single file, each team approaches a residential building watched by a few surprised neighbours.
On reaching the door, one of the masked police officers uses his fingers to count down. Three, two, one. The door is knocked down, the silence shattered, the officers rush inside.
The raid results in the arrest of the leaders of a Nigerian-based group running an international sex-trafficking ring in Barcelona. It's known as the Supreme Eiye Confraternity (SEC), or the Air Lords, and 23 people are now behind bars, with European Arrest Warrants issued for those who have left the country.
This operation was 18 months in the planning and involved monitoring more than a million phone calls, tapping dozens of mobile phones and months of surveillance.
Cortes and his team first came across the group in 2011 during a forgery investigation, but quickly discovered it was a huge network trafficking women and drugs.
He asks me to look at his screen. On it is a map detailing all the locations they have identified where members of the SEC operate. Cities are marked in Europe, North, West and East Africa, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia.
Eiye in Yoruba, the main language of south-western Nigeria means "bird". The group's insignia is an eagle and each city containing members is called a "nest", with the "mother nest" in Ibadan, about 100km (60 miles) north-east of Lagos.
The group was started at the University of Ibadan in the 1970s, and the original intention was to make a positive contribution to society. Over time, however, many members went astray, committing violence in Nigeria and delving into crime abroad.
The group now traffics human beings and narcotics (cocaine and marijuana) and forges passports. It has also facilitated the transport of stolen crude oil into Europe.
"They are able to earn money in many ways, but we are focused on human-trafficking and the victims," says Cortes.
His second-in-command, Alex Escola, then tells me something remarkable.
"You know, one of the tappings showed us that last year, on 7 July, around 400 members of SEC met in Geneva. They had a big meeting, all together."
It was an audacious display of arrogance. In a city where many of the world's global institutions are headquartered, includi
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