The men of the Kano Hisbah Board have arrested a human trafficker at a motor park with 12 women, moving them to Lagos State for onward transportation to a foreign country.
The Deputy Commander General, DCG, of Hisbah, Sheikh Mujahideen Aminuddeen, in a statement, explained that the man was arrested by the command’s officials at a motor park along Zaria road on Monday.
According to the DCG, the Hisbah operatives, led by OC motor parks Muhammad Bashir, arrested the agent, who was said to be from Borno state, boarding a motor vehicle to Lagos alongside the victims.
Aminuddeen disclosed that preliminary information had shown that the man was trafficking the women, each with an international passport to Sierra Leone through Lagos, Benin Republic and Ghana.
The DCG stated that the man had a plan to facilitate the issuance of a visa for the victims to travel to Saudi Arabia in search of greener pastures.
Aminuddeen also disclosed that during interrogation, the women informed the Hisbah that each of them had paid N1,500,000 initial payment with the agreement to pay the balance when they get a job in their destination country.
He said one of the women is 50 years old, two are 23 years each, two are 20 years old, while the remaining are mostly 15 years old.
He explained that among the victims, 3 are from Katsina, 2 from Kano, 1 each from Borno, Jigawa and Zamfara states.
This is unfortunate. The money they paid for this trip is enough for them to start a business in their respective states. I wonder how they defined the risks involved in this kind of journey. We called on their guardians, parents and loved ones to caution them against this kind of trip.”
“We arrested them at a motor park in Kano. We were informed that they are on their way to Lagos, from Lagos to the Benin Republic, then Ghana, where the agent would work on their visas to Saudi Arabia.
If the visa processes fail, they would be moved to Sierra Leone. Even if they secure the visa to Saudi Arabia, there is no specific work to do there. This is dangerous and unfortunate.” Aminuddeen state.
He also disclosed that Hisbah had handed over the agent and the victims to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, for further Investigation.
