A suspected child trafficker, Ekpereamaka Okonkwo, who runs a brothel in Oba community, in the Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State, has been apprehended.

Okonkwo was arrested by the Anambra State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Welfare in collaboration with the Anambra State Police Command on Tuesday.

Report gathered that the suspect was arrested four days after a video of her brothel operations went viral online.

Until her arrest on Tuesday, Okonkwo was accused of using the brothel to camp underage girls for prostitution and child trafficking purposes.

After the news of her alleged criminal actions became public knowledge, Okonkwo, who sensed that security operatives would be on her trail, gathered the girls and other workers and absconded.

When a team of government and security officials stormed the brothel on Saturday to arrest Okonkwo, no one was found at the brothel.

However, disclosing to journalists on Tuesday, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo, said the suspect was arrested when she was lured to an undisclosed location.

Obinabo said, “After the earlier failed attempt to apprehend the suspect, the suspect reached out to me for settlement and possibly bribe her way through in what she called ‘water the ground’.

“The suspect sent the husband to tip me off with the sum of N300,000 in Asaba, but I persisted in seeing the suspect before any further discussion. It was on that note that I was able to lure her to an undisclosed location with security operatives already on guard to arrest her.”

The commissioner, therefore, warned that Prof. Chukwuma Soludo’s administration was out to deal with child offenders who carry out unimaginable activities in the state, adding that the ministry would not relent in apprehending perpetrators of sexual slavery in any guise.

During interrogation, the suspect, who denied ever sending her husband to bribe the commissioner, pleaded to be pardoned.

It was alleged that the suspect was once running the child trafficking business in Nnewi before she moved to Oba to continue the same business in 2019.