“Reality does not correspond to what you say”. On the second day of the trial of a Nigerian pimping network in Marseille, the president of the criminal court Denis Johan confronts one of the main defendants with the transcription of her telephone conversations. From which it emerges that Vera, one of the five women to answer, alongside eight men, for acts of “trafficking in human beings” and “aggravated pimping”, complains a lot about one of the “girls” that it hosts. Her name is Omowiye, she is also called “Lucky”.
“She doesn’t go to work every day.” “The money I spent to bring her from Italy, she paid nothing. “My money, I’ll get it back completely, whether she likes it or not.” “” It’s like the girls are now because there is no more money on the street. “She wants problems, she will have them.” »Denis Johan recounts the quotes from the wiretaps that led in 2018 to the dismantling of this active network in downtown Marseille. A translator echoes it in English to the person concerned, who kicks in touch every time.
A debt of 5,000 euros
In the box of the accused, Vera delivers a version other than that of the wiretaps. According to her account, Vera “saved” Omowiye in Libya by bringing her to Marseille, via Italy, at her expense and without asking for anything in return. She thus denies waiting for the reimbursement of the sum of 5,000 euros (when she herself had to pay 40,000 euros for her own passage in Europe). “We are in a context of power, we are talking about all the worries created by a prostitute on the spot”, however, notes the president of the court.
Earlier at the bar, the hearing of Solomon, born in 1995 in Benin City, Nigeria, reflected the pressure on victims of the network to work and bring in money. Or rather the transcription of the telephone tapping, the defendant also refuting any fact of procuring. When Vivian calls him saying “it’s cold tonight, I would like to go home”, he retorts: “It’s not one o’clock. “Regarding a client, a” very ugly “man who” smells bad “, he urges him:” You have to follow him if you really love me “.
“What are you afraid of?” “
“What we hear is above all a logic of profitability”, slices the president of the court, who will also evoke the apartment loaned to a man “wanting to make love with a little girl in transit”, before it is taken elsewhere. Vertigo of eavesdropping. In conversations on Vera’s phone like Solomon’s, we hear the fear of eavesdropping, of police checks. “You are afraid of what if, as you say, everything is going very well, that it is a conversation with your girlfriend”, launches Denis Johan after having read this exchange: “We must not speak on the phone any more because your line is on listen “.
According to the removal order, Vera and with her husband Tony are involved in “the organization of the trafficking and prostitution of numerous Nigerian victims”. “Both of them organized the arrival of these women from Italy, sometimes ensuring their own recruitment in Italy and their passage in France, and exerting daily pressure on them to repay their debts. . Both lived under the same roof as the prostitutes who worked for them. For these facts, they face up to ten years in prison. The trial ends Thursday.