‘Voodoo’ nurse Josephine Iyamu guilty of sex trafficking

A British nurse has been convicted of trafficking five Nigerian women
into Germany to work as prostitutes after subjecting them to voodoo
rituals. Josephine Iyamu forced the women to swear oaths to hand over
money to her during “juju” ceremonies. Iyamu, 51, formerly of
Bermondsey, was convicted of five counts of arranging or facilitating
travel for sexual exploitation at Birmingham Crown Court. Jurors also
found her guilty of perverting the course of justice. The voodoo
rituals saw the women forced to eat chicken hearts, drink blood
containing worms, and have powder rubbed into cuts, the court heard.
The case is the first in England and Wales in which a British citizen
has been prosecuted for sexual trafficking offences committed outside
the UK. Her husband, 60-year-old Efe Ali-Imaghodor, was acquitted of
doing acts intending to pervert the course of justice. Iyamu declared
a modest income of around £14,500 in 2016/17 from her work as an NHS
agency nurse, the court heard. But after her arrest last year
investigators found she was able to afford to spend thousands on air
travel and a large home in Benin City, Nigeria. Prosecutor Simon Davis
said the voodoo rituals gave Iyamu psychological control over the
women. The court heard Iyamu was “willing to put the women at risk of
serious injury and or death as they made their journey from Nigeria to
Europe”. They were too afraid to challenge her or fail to pay her back
tens of thousands of Euros she charged them to be trafficked into
Germany, the court was told.