http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35244148

He asks me to look at his screen. On it is a map detailing all the locations they have identified where members of the SEC operate. Cities are marked in Europe, North, West and East Africa, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia.

Eiye in Yoruba, the main language of south-western Nigeria means "bird". The group's insignia is an eagle and each city containing members is called a "nest", with the "mother nest" in Ibadan, about 100km (60 miles) north-east of Lagos.

The group uses forged documents and passports from Nigeria to fly into places like Gatwick - these need co-operation of people working in the government.

The group was started at the University of Ibadan in the 1970s, and the original intention was to make a positive contribution to society. Over time, however, many members went astray, committing violence in Nigeria and delving into crime abroad.
The group now traffics human beings and narcotics (cocaine and marijuana) and forges passports. It has also facilitated the transport of stolen crude oil into Europe.

"They are able to earn money in many ways, but we are focused on human-trafficking and the victims," says Cortes.
His second-in-command, Alex Escola, then tells me something remarkable.

"You know, one of the tappings showed us that last year, on 7 July, around 400 members of SEC met in Geneva. They had a big meeting, all together."

It was an audacious display of arrogance. In a city where many of the world's global institutions are headquartered, including numerous UN agencies, a global criminal institution held its own parallel international gathering and no-one tried to stop it.

Benin City, Nigeria, is a human-trafficking hub, and a good place to observe how the criminal operation works.

There are two ranks of madame. Lower-ranking madames prowl the streets - many on la Rambla, the main tourist strip in the centre of Barcelona - constantly texting and calling their girls to check on their whereabouts. Girls are told to earn about 500 euros (£370) a night to stay in the madame's good books.

But clients, mostly tourists, may pay as little as 20 euros (£15) for sex, so this is often impossible.

After a night's work, girls return home and divide their earnings into three. One part goes to pay for the flat, the second to pay for food and the third goes to the SEC. If they are not earning enough or refuse to work, the madames may beat them.

Higher-ranking madames collect money from their subordinates to pass on to local SEC leaders known as ibakkas. Always men, the ibakkas run the whole operation. They facilitate payment through the hawala system - a form of money transfer based on trust and one that is difficult to trace.

The size of the network means those arrested will be replaced.

Ibakkas make sure that if any of their girls step out of line, their families back home are threatened. Family members have been known to be abducted and "disappeared" when girls refuse to pay their madames.

One woman, Jessica, who was trafficked to Spain in 2009, says two of her daughters, now in their early 20s, left home in Benin to escape the gang. One is in Dubai, the other in Morocco waiting to cross to Spain.

But in escaping one group of traffickers, they have put themselves in the hands of another.

"In order to pay the debt, they will be prostitutes too," says Jessica.

Tragically, this is not an isolated case.

citizenisb:
There are two ranks of madame. Lower-ranking madames prowl the streets - many on la Rambla, the main tourist strip in the centre of Barcelona - constantly texting and calling their girls to check on their whereabouts. Girls are told to earn about 500 euros (£370) a night to stay in the madame's good books.
But clients, mostly tourists, may pay as little as 20 euros (£15) for sex, so this is often impossible.
After a night's work, girls return home and divide their earnings into three. One part goes to pay for the flat, the second to pay for food and the third goes to the SEC. If they are not earning enough or refuse to work, the madames may beat them.
Higher-ranking madames collect money from their subordinates to pass on to local SEC leaders known as ibakkas. Always men, the ibakkas run the whole operation. They facilitate payment through the hawala system - a form of money transfer based on trust and one that is difficult to trace.
The size of the network means those arrested will be replaced.
Ibakkas make sure that if any of their girls step out of line, their families back home are threatened. Family members have been known to be abducted and "disappeared" when girls refuse to pay their madames.
One woman, Jessica, who was trafficked to Spain in 2009, says two of her daughters, now in their early 20s, left home in Benin to escape the gang. One is in Dubai, the other in Morocco waiting to cross to Spain.
But in escaping one group of traffickers, they have put themselves in the hands of another.
"In order to pay the debt, they will be prostitutes too," says Jessica.
Tragically, this is not an isolated case.

This is a victimless crime as those girls know very well what they are getting into.

Virtually all these girls part with some money to their travel agents and not traffickers before they embark on their pr0stituion career.

Those who even finish paying their traffickers still need to pay their former madames who are the go between who pay the cops a weekly fee. Even European police are koworpt.

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If you go to Benin all they talk about is how to go to abroad.

This is what motivated that juvenile delinquent in his ignorance to stowaway on a local flight heading from Benin to Lagos thinking it was going abroad.

The child was so reckless and desperate to abandon his school and family without even bothering the actual destination of the flight he bothered or even researching the dangers of stowaying in the landing gear of a Boeing 737 which cruises at 30,000ft.

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BBC......80% of this write up is hogwash

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