By Tabora Bojang
The Sierra Leone High Commission in The Gambia has uncovered a criminal network allegedly linked to QNET under which dozens of young girls and men are being trafficked to The Gambia and lured to pay between US$1,000 to US$1,500 on the pretext that they are going to be issued visas for US, Canada or Australia.
Following a tipoff, High Commissioner Martha Consilia Kanagbo and her team visited a compound in Busumbala where they found dozens of young women and men who narrated how they were brought to the country under a false pretext with some of them selling their family lands and other assets to travel to the country.
Mahawa Allieu, communications attaché at the high commission told The Standard that following the visit they found that a company called QNET, registered and operated by a Malaysian, Senegalese and Guinean national recruited 21 young Sierra Leoneans to help them convince people back home to join the network with promises of helping them travel overseas.
”These 21 Sierra Leoneans young men and women they employed are the ones responsible for recruiting people back home by telling them that there is a travel opportunity in The Gambia and that they should come to have their documents processed to travel to Canada, US or Australia. They would create AI generated images of people they claimed to have successfully recruited to convince their victims and once they agreed, they would ask them to pay US$1000, US$1200 to US$1500 and then travel to The Gambia,” Mahawa explained. She said some of their victims confessed selling their family lands and other belongings to come to The Gambia.
She alleged that upon arrival their traffickers would keep them hostage in separate apartments in Busumbala and Farato while their phones and documents are seized on the pretext that their visas are being processed in The Gambia.
She said they met 24 young women and two men at a compound in Busumbala adding that some of the victims hid away when the high commission team visited the compound.
The matter was reported to the police and the immigration in Tanji leading to the arrest of the suspected ring leaders of the network.
Mahawa added that of all the young girls they found in the apartment only four agreed to go with the high commission officials to help them return to Sierra Leone.
”The rest of the girls are still in the facility because their traffickers brainwashed them that they are going to travel and that the high commission wanted to stop them from travelling. We are now working with Gambian authorities to clamp down on them and ensure they are repatriated,” she said.
She disclosed they recovered large sums from the traffickers.
”One of the girls paid US$1,250, but we recovered US$1,100. Another paid US$1200, about 27 million Leones but we recovered 20 million Leones. The third lady paid US$800 and we recovered all of it while the fourth lady paid 20 million Leones but we recovered 19 million,” Mahawa disclosed.
She added that they were also informed by one of the victims that there was another compound where over 50 Sierra Leoneans majority of them women, were being hosted by the suspected traffickers.
