Dubai’s Dark Secret: Sex Trafficking Networks, Online Lures, and the Bitter Reality Behind UAE Tower Parties

According to the Daily Mail, in some cases, aspiring influencers are deceived by offers from fake modelling agencies and are then forced to take part in illegal Russian sex parties aboard luxury yachts. Earlier this year, Maria, a 20-year-old model, was found severely injured by the roadside in Dubai. She later claimed that she had been assaulted by wealthy Russians after a wild party at a hotel. This incident sparked public debate over sexual slavery in the UAE.

In other cases, impoverished girls from developing countries are lured with promises of jobs that would allow them to support their families, only to discover too late that they have been sold to sex slavery gangs. All the victims share a common feature: the hope for a better life, new opportunities, or even love.

A Rescuer for the Victims?

Angus Thomas, a British anti-human trafficking activist and founder of the Hope Education Project, has so far rescued 23 Nigerian women and girls from Dubai’s covert operatives. He says that naïve Western influencers fall into the same traps as vulnerable African women.

Thomas began his anti-trafficking work by chance in 2019, during a 48-hour stopover in Dubai. On New Year’s Eve, while leaving his hotel to buy medicine for his wife, a young, thin West African woman in a tight dress stopped him, her eyes full of despair, and offered him sex. Thomas refused and asked, “Do you want to be here?” The woman replied: “No.”

Thomas offered to help and arranged to meet her the next morning before his flight home. The woman later explained her lateness by saying she had been punished by her handler for not earning enough money. Thomas recalls: “Until then, I knew nothing about human trafficking or what was really going on in Dubai.” He photographed the woman’s passport and injuries, gathering evidence to secure her release. On the plane, he told himself: “I am the only person in the world who knows about this. I must take responsibility.”

Over the following year, Thomas fought to free the woman from sexual slavery and, in the process, uncovered four other sex trafficking networks.

Online Romance Traps

Grace, a woman from Kenya who was struggling to make a living selling cheap shoes in Nairobi, met a Nigerian man on Facebook. Promising her a better life, he arranged a one-way ticket to Dubai. According to Thomas, Grace enjoyed two weeks of a seemingly extraordinary social life, but during a dinner in Fujairah, her new “boyfriend” told her she had to stay and work there. He had sold her to the owner of a restaurant.

Grace was imprisoned for two and a half years in a small room above the restaurant and forced into prostitution. The complex contained several rooms filled with women like her, forbidden from leaving. She endured multiple clients daily and, in the last six months of her captivity, suffered severe abuse from wealthy men. Eventually, one customer took pity on her, returned her phone, and gave her some money. Grace escaped under the pretext of taking out the rubbish and lived under a bridge in Dubai until she was rescued through Thomas’s safe house. She returned home in 2023 but, out of shame, has still not told her family her story.

False Job Promises

Chloe, from Lagos, was lured to Dubai with the promise of work as a chef. Upon arrival, her passport was confiscated, and she was taken to Al Ain, a city in the eastern desert near the Oman border. According to Thomas, she worked as a cook for one week before being told she had to sleep with men to cover her accommodation costs.

Chloe endured four years of forced prostitution and daily abuse. After escaping, she obtained Thomas’s contact details and, after weeks of calls and pleading, he helped her return home. They remain in touch to this day.

Traffickers Living Comfortably

Thomas points to the notorious case of Christy Gold (real name Christiana Jacob Odiale), a senior figure in an organised trafficking syndicate who lured underage Nigerian girls to Dubai and forced them into prostitution. She evaded arrest for five years and was on Nigeria’s wanted list. In March 2024, a court convicted her in absentia, but the sentence was delayed until her arrest. In December last year, she was apprehended at Abuja Airport after returning from New Year celebrations in Dubai.

Gold, by creating a charming and attractive online persona, deceived vulnerable women while hiding the violence behind her “success.” Victims claimed she confiscated their passports and locked them in a small apartment in Dubai. Three young women testified against her in court, but Gold was released after paying a fine of 11 million naira (about £5,400). Thomas described the decision as “catastrophic” for Nigeria’s anti-trafficking laws and its global standing.

The Bitter Reality of Sex Parties

Angus Thomas describes the infamous sex parties as “a horrific and extreme example” of what happens behind Dubai’s closed doors. “The word ‘party’ is completely misleading,” he says. “This is the complete exploitation of humans by corrupt men, and there is nothing party-like about it.” However, he believes social media often exaggerates these events to attract attention.