The people posing as job recruiters promised lucrative work in Canada, but their victims soon found themselves held against their will in Côte d’Ivoire and forced to lure new victims into the trap.
In all, 33 people from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo were tricked into paying as much as $9,000 each to fake recruiters in a human trafficking operation that investigators described as a pyramid scheme. Victims were held in abusive conditions in Abidjan, where their traffickers forced them to post pictures of themselves on social media accounts in luxury hotels and similar glamorous settings to lure others into the trap. Traffickers sold the lie by giving their victims Canadian contact information and restricting what they could say to friends and family, according to investigators.
The joint Ghanaian-Ivorian investigation was coordinated with Interpol and carried out by Ivoirian police. Two traffickers were arrested.
Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza praised the operation as a model for future anti-trafficking work.
“This success involving Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana is an excellent example of how important police cooperation is when it comes to fighting human trafficking scams,” Urquiza said in a statement. “Because of their joint efforts, victims have been saved and those responsible are now facing justice.”
Human trafficking remains a scourge across much of Africa, with victims varying by region. In East Africa, victims are commonly men. In Southern Africa, they’re women. In West Africa, trafficking victims are most often children. The Global Organized Crime Index ranks Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana 19th and 20th among African nations for human trafficking. Both countries have made progress in combatting human trafficking through legislation outlawing it for labor or sex, among other things.
In recent years, Côte d’Ivoire created six police units tasked with reducing human trafficking with a particular focus on forced child labor. Ghana has also created an Anti-Human Trafficking Unit within its police service that focuses on, among other things, the kind of job recruitment schemes that authorities broke up in Abidjan.
Despite the success, observers say both countries have work to do to fund enforcement efforts, train investigators and support victims.
“Although improvements are visible, increased funding and resources will help strengthen anti-trafficking efforts in the country,” analyst Raphaelle Copin wrote for the Borgen Project, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) dedicated to fighting extreme poverty across the globe.
Investigators learned about the Ivoirian recruitment scheme when a Ghanaian victim escaped and returned home to her family. Interpol characterizes employment-based pyramid schemes like the one uncovered in Côte d’Ivoire as a growing threat.
“Once ensnared by human traffickers, their personal documents are confiscated and they are often subjected to a horrific range of abuses, including forced labor, extortion, physical violence or sexual exploitation,” Interpol authorities said.
The recruitment scheme included many of Interpol’s warning signs for potential human trafficking schemes, including a demand for up-front payment and an offer that sounds too good to be true.
Youssouf Kouyate, director general of the Côte d’Ivoire National Police, said cooperation with Ghana and Interpol demonstrated the power of regional partnerships. He also praised the victims for speaking out.
“I would like to commend the bravery of the victims who came forward to assist in this investigation and to reaffirm our commitment to pursuing and dismantling the networks that perpetrate these crimes,” Kouyate said.
