People casually toss around the phrase “bad juju” to indicate a malignant vibe or lousy luck. But for the young Nigerian women victimized by a human trafficker in 2016, their belief in the juju religion was a controlling force. In Cursed, presenter and journalist Femi Oke not only recounts an appalling story of women trafficked for sex but also explains how the power of juju was used to keep them in line. In this unusually well-produced podcast, Oke interviews the important players in this saga, including the dedicated investigators, the three women (with whom Oke strikes up a nice rapport), the prosecutor, and the defense lawyer. Thanks to wiretap audio and police interviews, we hear the voice of Josephine Iyamu herself, also known as Madam Sandra, who’d pulled off an amazing double life. A trial in Birmingham yielded her conviction in 2018 as the first person to be found guilty under a new British law called the Modern Slavery Act. Even juju couldn’t protect her from that. —Lisa Henricksson