MAFIAS
Does the Nigerian mafia not exist? Here are sentences and testimonies that demonstrate the opposite
An article from "Bloomberg Businessweek", taken up by "Internazionale", tells of a controversial document seized in 2018 and foreshadows a judicial persecution against the brotherhoods established among the migrant communities in Italy. But already since 2009, numerous sentences have established that Eiye, Black Ax and Maphite act as mafia organisations.
by Giuseppe Pipitone and Mario Portanova | 16 SEPTEMBER 2023
There is an air of denial about the Nigerian mafia. Bloomberg Businessweek has published an investigation according to which the accusations of mafia association brought against members of the brotherhoods, or cults, present in Italy are based on an artificial document: the " green bible ", a text seized in Rome by the Italian police in March 2018, written as a sort of criminal program of the Maphite , one of the Nigerian brotherhoods present in Italy. The article was featured on the cover of Internazionale , which in its internal headline presents it as follows: "The existence of this mafia has been demonstrated with a less than credible document ". The article is signed by Zach Campbelland Lorenzo D'Agostino . The latter is an Italian journalist who at the end of August published a series of tweets entitled " The invention of the Nigerian mafia " (in which among other things he targeted an investigation by our monthly FQ MillenniuM from November 2018) .
“The year before his discovery, no Nigerian had been charged under Italian anti-mafia laws. The following year, however, 154 Nigerians were tried,” we read. In the long investigation, not a single judicial document is cited against alleged cultists in which it is demonstrated that the "green bible" was used as the only "smoking gun" to send them to prison. But we read: “The green bible has become the most important document of the war declared by the Italian government against the alleged criminal organizations in which thousands of Nigerian immigrants are allegedly involved. Among these there would also be one called Maphite. For years in Italy law enforcement officials, the press and right-wing politicians have described Maphite and other similar groups as a sort of Cosa Nostra of the 2000s”.
In the text, the often rambling and xenophobic theses of the right in government today are arbitrarily associated with those of prosecutors and the press, as parts of a single campaign of defamation of migrants. D'Agostino published his denialist tweets in the wake of the controversy surrounding the book Nigerian Mafia by Giorgia Meloni , Alessandro Meluzzi and Valentina Mercurio, where the mafia has little or nothing to do with it, but considerations are wasted on African immigrants as "degraded beings and cursed” dedicated to “human sacrifices” and so on. The book is from 2019, but has resurfaced in the news in the wake of the Vannacci case .
SENTENCES AND REGRETS (NOT INFORMANTS) – The facts, however, say otherwise. The investigations and convictions for mafia association against dozens of members of the brotherhoods occurred well before the discovery of the "green bible". Also for the Maphites , who according to Bloomberg Businessweek "would be" one of the "alleged" Nigerian criminal organizations in Italy. On 12 January 2018, therefore two months before the seizure of the "green bible", the Turin court convicted 21 members of the Maphite and Eiye, one of the main cults present in Italy, of mafia association . On November 19, 2020, the sentence became final, confirming the mafia association (naturally, without any reference to the “green bible”).
The first conviction in court for a Nigerian "cult" dates back to 2009 - nine years before the seizure of the "green bible" - when four members of the Eiye were convicted in the first instance in Brescia . In 2010, again in Turin , it fell to 36 members of Eiye and Black Axe . Relevant, in this regard, is what happens in Palermo , the city symbolizing the mafia association par excellence, where 17 people were arrested in 2016 : they were all accused of being part of the same Black Axe , active in the historic Ballarò district .
Among those sent to prison is Austine Johnbull , who according to the article becomes the “first Nigerian immigrant and fraternity member to become a police informant .” But Johnbull is not an informant, that is, an investigator's source who for a fee reveals information under the guarantee of anonymity . The reality is that the Nigerian is in all respects a repentant, that is, a collaborator of justice : he tells everything he knows to the prosecutors, including the crimes he has committed, and on the basis of his declarations he is admitted to a protection program . Today he lives in a secret locationwith a new identity and the same thing happened to his family members, who were transferred from Nigeria to Italy to guarantee their safety .
ACQUITTED AND CONVICTED: THE PALERMO CASE – Johnbull's statements led to the opening of two trials: the first was celebrated with the abbreviated trial and led to 12 final convictions and 2 acquittals; the second with the ordinary procedure ended with four acquittals , while the second appeal trial is underway for another accused. The Bloomberg Businessweek articlefocuses only on these latest sentences, without underlining that they were issued due to the old lack of evidence (according to paragraph 2 of article 530 of the criminal procedure code). He then explains that those acquittals came “also because of Johnbull 's testimonywas not very credible ." All true: the judges at the trial did not believe the Nigerian repentant. But Johnbull's statements had already been considered genuine and reliable by the judges of the trial celebrated with the abbreviated trial because they were "characterized by extreme specificity " and the absence "of intrinsic contradictions ". “Moreover, there are countless references to Johnbull's statements made by the defense itself, which in such cases consider the collaborator fully reliable ,” wrote the Palermo Assize Court of Appeal in 2020.
In other words: even the lawyers of the defendants had considered the Nigerian repentant reliable . In those same reasons the magistrates also recalled how the presence in Palermo "of an association of Nigerian origin called Black Ax whose members have committed very serious crimes against the person by making use of the so-called mafia method" had already been established by a final sentence . It is the story relating to an attempted murder with an ax carried out by Johnbull and two other members of Black Axe.
NIGERIAN MAFIA OR NIGERIAN CRIME? –The long article by Campbell and D'Agostino mentions in a few generic lines the sentences prior to the discovery of the "green bible", while valorising some recent sentences of the opposite nature. But how did the judges manage to condemn dozens of cult members for mafia association, all the way to the Supreme Court, without being able to rely on the document that the article presents as fundamental evidence, even if of dubious origin? Those investigations and sentences documented the responsibility of members of the cults cited in violence, torture, drug trafficking and dealing, and human trafficking. And they sanctioned its " mafia " not on the basis of more or less truculent "bibles" or rites of affiliation, but on what is established in article 416 bisof the Italian penal code: a criminal group is mafia if it is able, with its power of intimidation, to subjugate and influence the community of reference.
D'Agostino explains it in a box, but glosses over the last paragraph, introduced in 2008 and very relevant on this issue, according to which 416 bis also applies "to other associations, including foreign ones, which, making use of the intimidating force of the associative bond pursue objectives corresponding to those of mafia-type associations". It means in a nutshell that even members of organizations that are much less structured and organized than our "traditional" mafias ( Cosa Nostra , 'Ndrangheta , Camorra ) can be convicted of mafia charges. The Court of Cassation reiterated this with ruling 24536/2015: 416 bis is extended to the so-called " small mafias".", which despite not having the weight of the "large" ones, borrow their way of acting on a more limited scale.
WHAT EMERGES FROM THE TRIALS – This is exactly what emergedfrom all the pre-Green Bible trials . The Nigerian cults did not limit themselves to managing trafficking, but tried to impose their law on their immigrant compatriots in the cities where they operated. Let's cite some examples from the documents. “In Turin all Nigerians are afraid of them. It's like Italians when they hear about mafiosi", a witness, beaten for drug matters, recorded in the trial against Eiye and Black Axe, where among other things it emerged that the members themselves defined the cults as "a mafia ”. Various proceedings revealed that many Nigerian immigrants were forced to join(paying an entrance fee) to the sound of threats and violence. “If they are cultists it is dangerous, because they are going to kill my family,” explained one of the witnesses called by the Palermo magistrates.
There are many testimonies on the intimidating power of cults, strengthened by the fear of retaliation against relatives who remained in Nigeria , by the affiliates of the " mother houses ". It is thanks to this intimidating power that cults manage affairs in Italy too, as many investigations reveal. In Turin, the area of ??the Dora station "belonged" to the Maphites, where no one else could sell drugs without permission and without paying a percentage. In Bologna the Maphites extorted the wealthiest members of the Nigerian community, none of whom ever went to the police. The winning cult “wins control of people in every branch of human activity", a witness in the Turin proceedings of 2018 puts on record. Still regarding the validity of 416 bis, in the 2010 sentence it is specified that the cults involved "certainly did not intend to extend their influences to Italian citizens, but simply within the context of Nigerian community".
RELATIONSHIPS WITH Cosa Nostra – The Palermo ruling expressly says that the Black Ax constituted an “ anti-State ” (yes, it reminds us of something) that imposed rules on the Nigerian community – starting with silence – and hierarchies, for example in regulation of debts and credits. A management of the territory that led Nigerian criminals to have contact with members of Cosa Nostra . Porta Nuova boss Giovanni Di Giacomo and his brother Giuseppe talked about it already in 2013, in an intercepted conversation: they underlined that these are people active in hashish dealing. And that, despite being " fuddigni ", that is, a little crazy from their point of view, they knew how to behave and brought "respect ."
Years later, three justice collaborators belonging to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra ( Francesco Lombardo , Alfredo Geraci and Emanuele Cecala ) will talk about the relationships with Nigerians inside and outside penitentiaries. In fact, after a blitz in 2016, the mafia bosses of the Porta Nuova district (one of the most important in Palermo) had sent an order to the Pagliarelli prison : the Nigerians detained in their own sections (the High Security ones which house mainly mafiosi) they had to be respected and indeed it was necessary to " make oneself available ". The order came from the Ballarò gang and derived from the fact that the Nigerians were "used in drug trafficking ."
There had also been disagreements in the past due to the fact that Nigerians were selling marijuana at too low a price. The Ballarò mafiosi had ordered a series of punitive raids, which had stopped only when one of the Nigerians - Isiguzo Tochi Chima , currently on trial in the Appeal - had gone to talk to three members of Cosa Nostra gathered in a pub: from that moment it was decided that the Nigerians would sell marijuana "on their own" and hashish on behalf of the mafia family of central Palermo . This story is considered proven by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Palermo which, however, does not consider it proof of the existence of an autonomous mafia association distinct fromCosa Nostra : on the contrary, according to the judges, it only proves that the Nigerians worked with the Sicilians in drug trafficking. In Ballarò there were no Nigerian mafiosi, but Nigerians who worked with the mafiosi.
GREEN BIBLE AND MAGICAL RITES – We cannot know whether the “ green bible ” is authentic or not. Bloomberg Businessweek 's investigationraises well-founded doubts, but fails to prove that the Maphites' explicit criminal program is a hoax. Some arguments used to dismantle it, however, are questionable. It is “a jumble of phrases copied from texts of criminal gangs in US prisons, phrases of famous bosses and films about the mafia, including The Godfather and Goodfellas ”, the journalists write. But in the same way the copy and paste could demonstrate the will of the authors, perhaps clumsy and naive, to give himself a mafia caliber. Even certain Camorra bosses ape gangster films, and the notes of The Godfather resounded at the famous funeral of Vittorio Casamonica in Rome. No one, however, has dreamed of diminishing the criminal depth of those involved because of this. On the contrary.
The article then jokes about the fact that Nigerian crime is associated with "witchcraft" and "magical rituals". Yet it is a reality told over the years by dozens and dozens of victims of trafficking, held in slavery even with the threat of voodoo rites considered, whether we like it or not, a concrete threat. The sentence of the Palermo preliminary hearing judge, Claudia Rosini , in 2018 also speaks of Black Ax not only as a mafia organization, but also as a "cult with religious and magical aspects linked to the tribal culture to which it belongs" .
THE TURIN CASE – Campbell and D'Agostino's article highlights some recent sentences that deny mafia association. Like the one in Turin, in which the "green bible" was actually used as a source of evidence, which concerns Osaze Osemwegie known as Caesar , a politician and government official arrested in 2019 in the Netherlands and extradited to Italy in 2020 as part of a new Maphite investigation. “Osemwegie was acquitted and has since been carrying out an international campaign to draw attention to miscarriages of justicein the trials against the brotherhood", the journalists write, "but on 30 June the Turin Court of Appeal overturned the first degree acquittal sentence, sentencing him to more than ten years in prison". For the record, at first instance Osemwegie was not "acquitted" at all, but sentenced, on 29 May 2021, to four years' imprisonment for "simple" , i.e. non-mafia, criminal association, with the aggravating circumstance of internationality .
Judge Roberta Cosentini writes in the sentence filed on July 15, 2021: “The defendants were certainly part of an association which, outwardly called the Green Circuit Association , showed its illegal face with the different name of 'Maphite' . This attempt at verbal camouflage was revealed by Osemwegie himself during the Bologna meeting in September 2013." This is a meeting at the Hotel Boscolo, recorded by the police and cited in the Bloomberg Newsweek article, where the Nigerian official who presides over it states: " And remember that we cannot beat you here, we can't bite you here (...), but we can go home and tell your mother and your father that you are creating problems in Italy and this is the reason why (...) we will arrest you . With the grace of the Lord, the police commission are our dear friends (…) so we will call them and say: 'This one is ruining our name in Italy, he must be detained and they will lock you up legally.'
The authors of the article do not mention any of this. Here's what they write about it: “The more peaceful members (of the brotherhoods, ed. ), in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the violent elements, have rebuilt the networks between students by giving them new names. Several Maphites have moved on to a new group called the Green Circuit Association.”
As we can see, the "green bible" is anything but the main piece of evidence brought by the prosecution. In the same ruling, the Turin court motivates the failure of 416 bis on other fronts. In particular, he does not believe that the Maphite-Green Circuit Association criminal association has mafia-like characteristics because the facts demonstrated as evidence of influence towards the community are modest, and suggest "above all a generic clash between rival gangs". Indeed: “The alleged 'mafia power' of the Maphites clashes with the similar and competing attitude of numerous other distinct associations, which the declarants have indicated with the names of Eiye, Black Axe, Pirates , Vikings and Buccaneers ” . On 30 June this year the Court of Appeal of Turinit instead confirmed 416 bis for the accused. The reasons have not yet been filed.
Another investigation associated with the "green bible" cited in the article is that of Bologna , against about twenty members of the Maphite. Even in this case, no judicial documents are cited which attest to the fundamental importance of the contested document. In reality the investigation was also based on justice collaborators and wiretaps. Not even mentioned is the fact that, also in this case, the "suspected" Nigerian mafia members were definitively convicted by the Supreme Court on 30 March this year.
DIA, EUROPOL, FBI: ARE THEY ALL WRONG? – Thinking that our anti-mafia legislation is too severe and "broad" is a free opinion, and many contradictory sentences on non-traditional mafias (just think of "Capital Mafia") demonstrate different views even among the officials. The Nigerian mafia, however, is not just an Italian "bad thing", even if the legal definition of mafia association belongs only to our legal system. Already in 2013 , Europol included in its annual report Nigerian criminal organizations among those capable of "dominating" the communities of compatriots who emigrated abroad, such as Cosa Nostra in the United States at the time. The FBIfor many years it has indicated them as the most powerful in all of Africa, operating in eighty countries, including the United States, especially in drug trafficking. The cults have ended up at the center of investigations in the United Kingdom , Switzerland , Germany and other countries.
Every year our Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate dedicates several pages of its report to the phenomenon: in the last one it writes that "the Nigerian-based associations reproduce the characteristics of similar criminal realities born in the motherland, defined as cults, which act in a similar way to the Italian mafias, using close ties between associates, intimidating methods, secrecy, silence". Anti-mafia analysts underline that "the high organizational level and dangerousness of the Nigerian gangs are demonstrated by the character of mafia now judicially recognized” although “however, the mafia connotation contested against a structured Nigerian criminal group is not always confirmed in the different levels of judgement”.
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