Immigration Arrests Sierra Leonean Human Trafficker In Enugu, Repatriates 98 Illegal Aliens

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Friday, September 19th, 2014

IGNATIUS OKPARA, Enugu

The Enugu state command of the Nigeria Immigration Service NIS has arrested one Mr. Koffi Hassan, a Sierra Leonean, who specialises in trafficking of women from Nigeria to other parts of the globe for prostitution.

The state Comptroller of the service, Mr. Bashir Ismail, made this known in Enugu on Thursday.

According to him, the human traffic kingpin, who had been on their wanted list, was nabbed following a tip-off.

He said “Human trafficking has been a challenge in this part of the country.

“Just last month, we succeeded in arresting one notorious human trafficker called Koffi Hassan, who has been involved in trafficking of women for prostitution.

“We have been tracking him and finally, we were able to arrest the kingpin. We have now presented him for prosecution. After prosecution, we will definitely repatriate him” he stated.

“That’s a great achievement for us; we have been challenged for this kind of things in this area.

“This warns those who are involved in human trafficking that the end is in sight. Victims that are with him confessed what he uses them for prostitution and NAPTIP has succeeded in reuniting them with their families.”

The Comptroller, further said the command had also embarked on the repatriation of irregular aliens in the state.

Such uninvited people he said, had caused security breaches in the state and had become threats to their host communities.

“The service decided to embark on regular repatriation and removal of such kind of citizens that are among us.

“Between January and now, we have repatriated over 98 people out of Enugu. We have to be on it and to be frank, we have been getting great support from Enugu State government.

“We also get people referred to us due to our synergy with other security agencies. Whenever they have such kind of people arrested among other criminals, they do refer them to us, then we take action.

“We are very happy with that because the synergy has been working very well. That’s why we were able to repatriate such high number of illegal aliens.

“Most of the nationals are from Niger Republic, Togo and Mali and a few Beninois and the Cameroonians,” he said.

He added that citizens from West African countries were entitled to stay in any member state under certain regulations backed up by prescribed documents.

Ismail said that those without the required documents would be vulnerable to manipulation and could commit offences without records.