'Voodoo Prostitution Ring': Police Arrest Six

A Nigerian gang forced women into street prostitution in Spain by burning them with irons and using voodoo rituals, according to police.

Detectives have arrested six Nigerian nationals - including the suspected woman ringleader - as part of an investigation launched last year after one of the prostitutes filed a complaint with the authorities.

"The control exercised over women was total, involving verbal threats as well as physical violence and various voodoo ceremonies to terrorise them," police said in a statement.

"The ring caused them serious injury through bites or by using an iron to cause second-degree burns."

The ring allegedly recruited women in Benin City, a run-down Nigerian port, whose husbands and fathers had died and who were struggling to raise their children.

They transported the women over land to Morocco and then smuggled them on small wooden boats into Spain where they were forced to work as street prostitutes in Barcelona and Malaga.

In recent times Spanish police have swooped on similar prostitution rings that used the threat of voodoo curses to frighten their victims into obedience several times.

Before leaving Nigeria, the rings often take their victims to shrines where they swear to pay their debts to the group and not to denounce them to the police.

The women leave fingernails, hair, underwear and other personal items at the shrines which they are told will give voodoo priests the power to harm them wherever they are in the world.