- Two garbage collectors run into what they first think is a scene of animal sacrifice.
- When the remains of a boy are found and evidence that points to Santeria are found. They begin by checking out local practitioners but the man in charge claims that who did was not a true practitioner. They learn that the boy is Nigerian and that he was brought over as part of the slave trade.—rcs0411@yahoo.com
- The carved-up remains of a boy is initially believed to be the result of a cult-like church's activities, but further investigation by SVU reveals a smuggling ring for Nigerian youths in which a teacher involved with antiquities is violently involved.—Michael Daly
- Two garbage collectors are cleaning up a hilly area in Central Park. One is a comparative youngster warned by his veteran partner not to be surprised upon finding dead animals and the like. But what he finds instead is the body of a boy, chopped up and with spent candles next to him.
Pathologist Melinda Warner examines the body with Elliott and Olivia and indicates the boy was sacrificed. The candles suggest the sacrifice was a ritual of the Santeria religion, Afro-Caribbean in origin and where during slavery followers adapted it into Roman Catholic culture. SVU finds the candles were delivered to a Santeria church.
Elliott and Olivia interview the church's leader, Asante Odufemi, and aren't convinced by his answers; further query by John Munch and Fin Tutuola of neighbors around the church convinces ADA Casey Novak to get a search warrant from a reluctant judge, which naturally antagonizes Odufemi.
Warner then summons Elliott and Olivia as examination of the boy's bones reveals he came from Nigeria. The two detectives learn from the feds that human trafficking ranks with guns and narcotics as crime's biggest cash cow and that in the case of the boy a member of the Nigerian consulate, Kema Mobuda, is leading effort to stop illegal smuggling of children from her nation.
She tells Elliott and Olivia the consulate received a phone call from a girl asking about her brother, named Ajani. Fin and John find the girl, named Naima, working as a de facto slave for a wealthy intellectual woman, who'd heard about the dead boy, her brother, on TV news. The woman is arrested at a charity function (the unimpressed Kema Mobuda sourly notes, "I guess she doesn't know charity begins at home") and poutingly admits getting the girl from a Long Island warehouse.
The warehouse has been padlocked by its renter and inside is some thirty other children, all Nigerian. They identity Ajani's photo and say he was taken by "a white man with candy." The children also reveal Ajani and Naima wear pouches with small statues hand carved by their grandfather to bless them with good fortune.
Fin learns about these statues from Naima, and they are known as Ikengas, native only to Nigeria. Elliott and Olivia reinterview Odufemi and he reveals the church sold items at a recent auction to an art museum curator, Maggie Shaye. Maggie admits buying the statues with her husband, art professor Allan Shaye, who claims to have gotten them from an art dealer.
Elliott and Olivia see through Shaye's alibi and eventually arrest both Shayes. Allan refuses to talk, but his wife Maggie finally admits having suspicion about him and that he has a package in their basement.
John and Fin find the package scheduled to be mailed overseas and it contains more of Ajani's remains. With the only choice of execution or life behind bars Allan Shaye admits using Ajani for sex then chopping him up to cover it up; he got him from a "facilitator" named Martin Bosa, a Nigerian national. Fin and Mobuda find and arrest him and Mobuda threatens to send him to Kirikiri Prison - her native land's most notorious prison - unless Bosa talks about his human trafficking operations.
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