These two people are traffic Nigerian women to UK

TWO people have been jailed for money laundering and trafficking Nigerian women to brothels in the UK, including Swansea.

Lizzy Idahosa, aged 24, was sentenced to eight years in prison at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday, and her partner Jackson Omoruyi, 41, for two years.

The investigation began after Home Office Immigration Enforcement officers carried out an operation at the Ambassador Suite Massage Parlour, on City Road, Cardiff, in June 2013.

During her trial, the court heard how Idahosa put the victims through a “juju” ceremony and then forced the women to work in brothels to pay back £50,000, a figure she claimed was spent on fraudulent entry documents and travel from Nigeria.

Members of the jury heard that the trafficked women went through a “kind of hell”.

The ritualistic juju ceremony involved making the women to eat reptiles, snails, and sufer razor cuts.

Idahosa moved the women to a number of brothels around the UK, including some in Brighton, Swansea and Cardiff.

When passing sentence on Idahosa, judge Tom Crowther QC said: “You were the prime mover in this scheme.

“You targeted vulnerable young women and kept them in a kind of hell.

“You forced them to pay an arbitrary debt with their bodies day in day out. And you made significant sums from them.”

The judge added that the victims “lived under mental terror of breaking these promises.”

Women they spoke to told officers they had worked at brothels around England and Wales including in London, Croydon, Stevenage, Brighton, Swansea and Cardiff — paying their earnings directly to Idahosa or via Omoruyi's bank account.