There has been a steady rise in human trafficking and sexual exploitation in wat has now been framed as modern slavery in the United Kingdom. This is coming four years after a notorious ringleader in a sex trafficking gang which uses Heathrow to smuggle children into Europe has been arrested in Nigeria, extradited to the UK and jailed.

The woman, Franca Asemota, 36 was initially arrested on suspicion of money-laundering offences in an operation that was co-ordinated by the British National Crime Agency.

She was thereafter extradited to the UK for trail and was subsequently sentenced to 22 years in prison. This was after she had been indicted and declared wanted for the crime of organising a network that trafficked young teenage women from remote Nigerian villages into Europe using Heathrow airport as a transit hub. Those trafficked were promised education or jobs such as hairdressing in countries including France and Spain but were immediately forced into prostitution on arriving Europe.

Recent statistics have revealed that the cases of human trafficking has increased from 158 in 2017 to 543 in April 2020. This information is held by the Modern Slavery Policing Transfer Unit and it has a breakdown of the following exploitation types: sexual, labour, criminal, domestic servitude and forced marriage.  

In the matter concerning Asemota, many of the trafficked lot were also raped and voodoo practice were used on them in order to prevent the victims or their families from communicating the law enforcement agencies. The traffickers were said to have used also witchcraft to terrify their victims so they would not talk to police.

Asemota, arrested in the ancient city of Benin City and accused accompanying about 40 victims on eight separate flights into Heathrow between 2011 and 2012.