Nigerian prostitute ring busted
Police appear to have smashed a three-year human-trafficking operation that smuggled women from Nigeria into Greece and forced them into prostitution in the Omonia area in central Athens. Authorities said on Saturday that an alleged gang of six people, all Nigerian nationals, have been bringing Nigerian woman into Athens, via Italy and France, since 2003. Women who resisted working as prostitutes and strippers were beaten and the gang members would threaten their families in Nigeria with physical harm, police said. Each woman was forced to earn 400 euros per week until she repaid a 50,000-euro debt – the total cost to bring the woman to Athens, according to the suspects. Authorities were tipped off about the operation when one of the victims escaped from the house where she was imprisoned and notified police. A 26-year-old female suspect from the gang has been arrested and authorities are searching for five more people, according to a police source.
