Port Harcourt — In a meticulously coordinated operation on 24 June 2025, the Rivers State Police Command delivered a devastating blow to one of Nigeria’s most insidious criminal enterprises.
Under the stewardship of SP Grace Iringe-Koko, detectives traced a child-trafficking ring from Port Harcourt to Aba, Abia State, culminating in the arrests of 28-year-old Sunshine Hart and 38-year-old Kingsley Ekocha.
During the raid, they liberated a heavily pregnant Regina Sunday, who went into labour six days later and delivered a healthy baby boy at the Police Clinic in Port Harcourt. Both mother and child are in stable condition.
This bust occurs against a grim backdrop: Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 26 per cent of all detected trafficking victims in 2022, and global figures surged to 69,627 that year—a 25 per cent increase on 2019 levels, as the UNODC reports, driven by conflict, poverty and porous borders.
Nigeria itself remains a fertile ground for traffickers, with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) having investigated over 10,000 cases and prosecuted roughly 500 offenders since 2003.
Rivers State, long identified as a trafficking hotspot, accounted for 8.6 per cent of Nigeria’s externally trafficked victims in recent years, second only to Edo State.
CP Olugbenga Adepoju vowed to “dismantle this network in its entirety” and urged citizens to report suspicious activity.
“We will not rest until every last perpetrator faces justice,” he declared.
U.S. conservative commentators will likely hail this breakthrough as proof that “tough enforcement and community vigilance” can turn the tide against organised crime.
Indeed, with kidnappings and cyber-fraud syndicates increasingly entwined with trafficking rings, the need for robust intelligence-led policing has never been clearer.
As the investigation expands to identify further members of this syndicate, the message is unambiguous: no matter how deep the networks, law enforcement will penetrate every layer to protect the most vulnerable.
