Nigerian mafia: repentant reveals Cosa Nostra pact and secrets of drug couriers
Giuseppe Cirillo 20 September 2023
New collaborator "denies" Mario Mori about the "now dead mafia"

" We Nigerians manage 80 percent of the heroin that enters Palermo, while cocaine only 20 percent ." With these words, Samson Alaye Obas , 38 years old and with a sentence of 14 years in prison on appeal, gave an insight into a country where, unfortunately, it seems that there are many more possibilities for integration within organized crime, which within the legal economy. This is a story provided in recent months to the District Anti-Mafia Directorate - announced " Live Sicilia” - which confirms the coexistence of Palermo and Nigerian criminal groups in difficult areas such as Palermo: a city forced to face not only the challenge of crime, but also a high rate of unemployment, which places it, together with the rest of Sicily, among the tops of the European rankings relating to youth unemployment. In fact, despite the 'poor' former general Mario Mori consider the mafia now dead, the reality in Palermo shows us a very different picture: the mafias have multiplied, and Cosa Nostra controls them. A non-negligible fact, which adds to Obas' story, from which another, even more disturbing aspect also emerged: the surge in crack consumption in Palermo, especially among young people, and an agreement between Nigerian criminal organizations and Palermo bosses, whose aim is the management of drug dealing squares. In fact, the new collaborator explained to the public prosecutors Gaspare Spedale and Giulia Beux that at the basis of the relationship between the two criminal groups " there is an agreement " which concerns " the Italians of Ballarò”: when these are short of drugs they must be supplied first, even at the cost of cutting supplies to other drug dealing places, such as those of “ Vucciria, Falsomiele, Brancaccio and Piazza Marina ”, all managed by Nigerians. And again: “ Italians want pearl cocaine, 'Crystal white' it's called. When they can't find that, they ask Nigerians who deal in a poorer quality and it's called pinstripe. The people of Palermo - he continued - work with the pearl one because it is easier to process to sell crack ”. During his talks with prosecutors, the 38-year-old also described the various Nigerian organizations that support and support his associates. In addition to describing an organization “which is called 'Biafra', which offers support to fellow villagers to sell drugs ", Obas also spoke of other groups, which have long been rooted in the Palermo area, such as the Vikings, which " provide protection to those who deal drugs, or ask for get paid ”. Furthermore, the new justice collaborator provided several significant elements regarding the routes of the drugs, which would be shipped " from Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, or from Holland or Spain ". The first stages are “ France and Belgium, then Naples ” as far as Italy is concerned. Finally, " couriers are used to bring drugs to Sicily "; among these, there would be those who decide to ingest it, or transport it "inside special suitcases , specifically designed to overcome drug dog checks; suitcases that would also often stop in " Messina ".

The Nigerian mafia in the Dia report
The words of Samson Alaye Obasthey connect perfectly with the latest report by Dia, which, taking into consideration the declarations provided by various justice collaborators, described the management and control of the Palermo drug dealing squares, the approaches transmitted to the "square leaders" and to the drug pushers authorized to deal in the neighborhoods of Ballarò, Vucciria and Capo, but also the methods with which extortion is carried out against commercial establishments in the Palermo area. In particular, with regards to foreign crime, the latest Dia report also underlined "the margins of rooting of the Nigerian mafia in relation to relations with Cosa Nostra". In fact, in its report, Dia recalled the sentence issued in March 2022 by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Palermo, following the operation "Black axe ”. The judges highlighted how members of the Ballarò mafia family employed Nigerians as "picciotti" to carry out drug dealing activities only. A partnership, that between Nigerian crime and Cosa Nostra, which seems to be marked by a common propensity for the control of territorial areas, but also by silence, by the subjugation of the victims and by a level of danger, whose "mafiosity is now judicially recognized".