Police: Nigerian sex slaves found in Spain

MADRID, May 23 (UPI) -- Traffickers used voodoo to terrify Nigerian women brought to Spain to work as prostitutes, Spanish police said.

Police announced Thursday that 23 people were arrested this week, the BBC reported.

The investigation began in February when a Nigerian woman told police in Seville that she had been forced into sex slavery.

In a series of raids this week, investigators seized computers and items supposedly used in voodoo rituals.

The traffickers used "voodoo rituals and black magic to frighten the women and keep them always under control with the threat of 'destroying their souls' or 'making them crazy'," police said.

Orakwue Arinze of the Nigerian National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons told the British network the traffickers target teenagers, especially those from broken homes, and girls and young women who have been accused of witchcraft. He said the girls are forced to take oaths, usually in a cemetery or at a shrine, with rituals involving their blood, finger nails and pubic hair.

Police in Spain said the young women, once they are in Europe, were forced to work until they had "repaid" the cost of transporting them from Nigeria.