Nigerian Mafia in Italy: A Complex and Dangerous Presence

The Nigerian mafia's infiltration and criminal activities in Italy create fear and devastation, leading to arrests and unjust imprisonment of innocent individuals.

### The Nigerian Mafia in Italy: A Case of Misunderstanding
* 🇳🇬  The Nigerian mafia in Italy is portrayed as a **dangerous criminal organization**, involved in **drug trafficking, prostitution, and human trafficking**.
* 🔍  Italian authorities conduct a major investigation, culminating in the arrest of numerous Nigerian individuals suspected of **mafia ties**.
* 📚  The key evidence in the case is a document known as the "**Green Bible**," allegedly a handbook of the Nigerian mafia.
* 🕵️‍♂️  However, during the trial, it is revealed that the "**Green Bible**" is actually a **benign student association manual**, not a criminal document.
* ⚖️  The court ultimately acquits many of the accused, highlighting **flaws in the investigation and prosecution**.
* 🤔  The case raises questions about **racial profiling** and the application of **anti-mafia laws to immigrant communities**.
* 👥  Many Nigerians in Italy continue to face discrimination and suspicion due to the perceived threat of the **Nigerian mafia**.
* 🇮🇹  The incident underscores the **complexities of cross-cultural law enforcement** and the importance of **thorough investigation in criminal cases**.

[Music] The word mafia instills terror in all people who hear it, the attacks, the deaths, the killings, the bodies dissolved in acid, behind these, there are people who are violent just by being, let's say, accused of being mafiosi. Just this fact scares you because the penalties are very high, the consequences are devastating. Italy in recent years has learned about a new form of organized crime, the Nigerian mafia, which now does business with the local underworld while still remaining a mysterious object. The Nigerian mafia imposes a code of silence among their fellow countrymen, subjects who are mutilated or injured. It is clear that many things happen, and they are not beautiful. But it certainly was not a fairy tale book; it was a book that had to contain something extremely serious and secret. They relied on this book to strengthen their power in the criminal organization, mafia, mafia, mafia. I believe that the Nigerian mafia at this time can be considered the greatest danger to public order. The Italian justice system works if the right people are behind it. The system is perfect; it's often the men who are not. [Music] [Music] A journalist focused on judicial issues related to border migration policy. The story really starts when migration becomes a hot political issue; in it, there is a human emergency unfolding for African people, with no legal way to access Europe. They took action; they really made an impact on public opinion.

So, all of a sudden in Italy, there is a visible sizable African presence, and some people don't like that. Some sectors of the political class, especially on the right, started to make a big political issue of the flow of arrivals. Our grandparents fought wars to defend the borders of our country. As an Italian, I am fed up with dogs and pigs entering Italy without any limits. A series of Nigerian subjects were noticed to be more easily involved in morose brawls, serious injuries, and homicides. There was drug trafficking, there was favoring of prostitution. This led to an interpretation of the phenomenon that was not just common crime but something different, something that went beyond. They did it violently, they did it in an organized manner, using a so-called mafia method with so-called mafia intimidation. This was the impact that Nigerian organized crime had on the city. But the Italian mafia, the Nigerian mafia, is becoming famous for practices such as inciting prostitution, trafficking in human beings for the purpose of exploiting prostitution, including minors. Clearly, drug dealing stems from this dramatic practice of human trafficking for the illegal sale of their organs. We ask what the Italian state intends to do to regain control of its territory, and specifically, we request the sending of the army to Castel Volturno to regain control of our territory. Thank you.

The police were following me from one place to the other. I can't remember having trouble with anybody, even when I was in Nigeria. I have never been arrested for any crime or anything whatsoever. I never fell into trouble; I always go home. You know, my friends may have parties, they invite me, I go. Where is the crime? It was because we are Africans. Because of this racial discrimination, it's just racism. So, there was this mix that came about between stories that came from our own mafia history and the stereotype of Africans practicing dark magic. Nigeria has a long history of confraternities or cults, as they are sometimes called. They were formed basically to resist colonial rule. Over the '60s and '70s, they became university confraternities. Some of them, the Italian judiciary started to believe that all confraternity members were actually mafiosi, that the very confraternities were just a cover for an actual mafia organization. They discovered that the people they were investigating were actually part of a new confraternity that they didn't know about up to that point. The fights were at least for a certain period the only Nigerian CT that had legitimacy from the Nigerian mother house in Italy, imposing among their fellow countrymen a climate of omertà, of silence, necessitated by the fact that whoever speaks then has to suffer physical consequences. For example, there is a very interesting interception that describes a ritual

A drop of blood, this drop of blood stains a holy card, then the holy card is set on fire. This person must juggle a bit and hold the burning holy card in their hands, and they must say something like, May I burn like this holy card if I betray the organization. This is a secret structure that has affiliation rituals to enter the criminal structure that commits crimes. They don't join because they have to sing songs during Sunday mass; they join because they have to commit various types of crimes. This is how mafia criminal organizations work, and that's why the Nigerian criminal organization was identified and countered with anti-crime operations. A series of environmental interceptions were carried out very quickly, including surveillance activities, cameras, phone interceptions. So, if someone carries a phone in their pocket that is actually transmitting all the information being said around, it obviously allows for obtaining very genuine information. Once you bring the Antimafia code and rules into the investigation, the surveillance powers of the police and prosecutors become almost limited. They can work as much as they wish, they can see, and yet they couldn't find any concrete evidence that they were a criminal organization. But then something changes. Thanks to the bugging of hundreds of phones, the police finally realizes that there is going to be a very important meeting at the hotel in Bologna with a guest that the police described as the International Don of the mafia coming all the way from Nigeria.

Phone calls were about Nigerian subjects who had to go pick up their boss arriving by plane in Milan. In the end, they identified the airport and started tailing the car that was taking them to the Boscolo hotel. They proceeded with the classic installation of environmental interception. This means that the day before or two days before, they would proceed and work in emergency mode, simulating a malfunction in the audio and security system of the room where the meeting was supposed to take place. The confusion that arose allowed technicians disguised as electricians to enter and supposedly repair the system. In reality, they were technicians from the company that was installing the bugs on behalf of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Turin. The bugs were then retrieved, and the operation of listening in and understanding what was being said during the meeting at the Boscolo hotel was carried out. This meeting is crucial because it is one of the rare cases where a meeting of a criminal organization with characteristics similar to those of a so-called board of directors can be monitored. Cesar is a very important figure, a top figure in the Nigerian organization who came specifically to settle a dispute.

Now we have the Green CC Association. We created the CC Association ourselves because we exist. We cannot refer to the Mafia because if the Mafia is mentioned by the police, it obviously implies criminal hypotheses. The police bug the Boscolo Hotel meeting, and what they believe they find is evidence that the GCA and the Mafia are one and the same. It's not a mafia of savages as it would be easy, fun, or reassuring to think, but it's a highly sophisticated Nigerian mafia that has taken control of the Italian territory far beyond the military control capabilities of the Italian mafias. Oscar immediately starts talking to the police and the prosecutor, saying, I want to tell you everything. I want to tell you the truth about this group. One of the first things Oscar says to the police about the Mafia is that you cannot leave the fight; you can only leave through death. Once you are in, you cannot get out. He says there are very violent initiation rituals, mentions drug and weapons deals carried out by us. We have a role not as a police informant but as a real collaborator of justice because he speaks not only about crimes committed by other people but also about crimes committed by himself. He receives a kind of salary allowance from the state, so he exposes himself by saying, Yes, I have done certain things in that criminal context, and I will tell you how it works. The police expand the investigation, arrest many more people. Even when the police

I said Police, so I just opened the door. They showed me the paper, and I saw it was from the Green Sec Association. That was when I knew that, Ah, this is a case of the Association. They said, Okay, that's me. Hearing mafia, mafia, mafia being in prison is always horrible. The force of the prison has a kind of spirit. No matter the billions you have, if you are in prison, your liberty has been taken from you. You cannot move; you cannot make a call. The same thing that happened yesterday is what is going to happen today. There is no change. There is nothing you can do. If you are suspected of a mafia crime, then you stay in prison awaiting trial because you are too dangerous to be released into society. You know why the trial is finished. So, the PM is trying to build this case, which is the public prosecutor, as we call them in Italy, piecing together information he got from Oscar, he got from the Wis. But still, the case seems to be going nowhere. The evidence seems still very weak. At that time during the investigation, the police were really looking for group crimes. If you look at the case from the few people who commit crimes inside, they committed the crime individually, not in a group. So, a lot of things come to my mind. I thought, since there is no evidence in the case against us, the

We contact the colleagues of the Mobile Team in Rome, asking them to intercept this package, identify it, open it with due caution, with the Forensic team, with gloves, taking all necessary precautions, take photographs of all the contents of the package, close it again, and let the package continue to its destination. They received the book and did not think that the police could have photocopied its content. Maios Handbook: Ever to be the Green Bible. Just select bits and pieces, get leaks to the media, and these are really scary because the Green Bible contains sentences such as We m people with a smile on our face killing people. The police officers of the Mobile Team in Turin seized it in Rome at a post office while in transit from Nigeria among packages and registered mail in recent days. The text has been deposited at the courts of Catania, Modena, and Turin, which are translating it, a secret document that puts in black and white the rules and objectives of the organization, having no particular restraint in describing criminal behaviors, important for power management, money management, to have more and more influence in a certain territory. Well, throughout my career, I have faced many cases from murder to robberies, to sexual violence, to the mafia, including the Nigerian mafia. The fact of wanting to draw these parallels between the behaviors of the Italian mafia association and the behaviors of the subjects who would be part of these CALT is present and evident right

Stata, the impact of the Mafia presence in Italy during the golden years was terrible. The population still lives with great fear of these phenomena, to the point that there is often a real terror even in leaving home. There is always the danger of being killed, even because of a stray bullet. Good evening, we open the newscast with very serious news: a violent explosion occurred on the Palermo-Trapani highway. The Palermo police headquarters has announced that Giovanni Falcone passed away shortly after being admitted to the Civico hospital in Palermo. In the attack, three police officers from the escort also lost their lives. They were just blown up, the symbols of honest people, people who believe in justice, and they tore apart the very heart of honest society, civil society, ordinary people. Honest people rebelled against this code of silence system. People woke up at that moment, they felt and believed that all hope was dead, especially the youth. But then, inside me, something clicked, it's not possible like this. Something has to change. During the 80s and 90s, when new legislation was introduced in the Italian Criminal Code, one of the innovations was the rito abbreviato or short trial. It is a form of trial where the defendant chooses the short trial and tells the judge, I want to be judged.

Based on the evidence collected by the Public Prosecutor, this facilitates justice because less time is wasted. In exchange for this action, a sentence reduction of up to a third is granted. The CasaGRP party is not accepting it, but the defense agrees. They accepted it in exchange for a sentence. Abi is like Italian, meaning you accept the fact that you were wrong. In this case, they were saying they would give us the maximum sentence. So, your lawyer will advise you on what to do because he knows best for the case. Therefore, we decided to take the minimum sentence and forget about it. The police are focusing on the investigation, and the surveillance network is expanding. They are specifically focusing on people who they believe are the leaders of this mafia group. I was the Commissioner for Art, Culture, Tourism, and Diaspora Affairs. My role was to promote and preserve culture. The Nigerian Ambassador to Germany invited me. As a culture commissioner, the Governor allowed me to transit in Amsterdam and connect our flight to Berlin. When I put my passport through the barrier and took off, the police tried to check things on the computer. They looked at my face, looked up again, and then came up to me. They said, You know my name is in the system, and I am wanted for Nigerian mafia-related offenses. When I say mafia, I refer to Italy. So, we flew to our destination, and I saw four police cars with

The Italian prosecutor's office is able to arrest a foreign politician as a mafia overlord. I thought I was in Hell. There was no police interrogation, there was no proof, no questioning, nothing. I was second. We said going to transfer me from that SE to the other different SE, and when I got there, I saw some Black Nigerians that have been there for four years for the same crime. So I didn't recognize any person apart from Douglas. I looked up, I saw him inside the prison. So I said, What are you doing here? Just put cri. He said the proof told him that I'm the boss of all bosses, that he's going to give me 15 to 18 years. They told him that his name is listed among the criminal, the mafia because he attended as an observer the meeting in Bologna. He lost his job, and he was in the prison with me. They all went through the short, and the only thing that had was Emmanuel, that he called the Green Bible. And I asked Douglas, What is Green Bible? So I heard talking a lot about the Green Bible. And although I was a bit skeptical regarding the old Nigerian mafia story, that was a smoking gun, you know, a handbook of the Nigerian mafiosa. That's Canore. I finally managed to get the original scan of the full Green Bible. To begin with, it was an incredibly shy work. Like the cover

That's from the goodbye Mar, another big Maia classic. I went through the entire Bible, and not one single page of the green Bible was original. The transfer, another new guy from, when he was coming, he came with the green Bible. He said they lent it to him to study. That was the first day I saw the green Bible. I read it from beginning to the end. I saw that everything this Oscar said was a lie. I was like, more AF, how are we going to lie? So Douglas brought the green Bible to me, photocopies of so many things from the internet, from people's Facebook pages, and everything. And where he now surprised me was that he said the green Bible belonged to the Ma fraternity from school. So, it kind of relates to me now because I was a member of the Ma association in school. They were not bad, they were good. Our mods were fighting injustice about school lecturers and even government. We had a book that was a manual written by the students in 1978 called the Great Book (GB). The Great Book, which the students use, is not a secret document, just a constitution to lead the crusade against injustice. Being a member of the association does not make you a criminal. So, I started making my investigation, reading it all, writing it all, tried to translate. So, I started to go through the interrogation, one after the other. I found out

Working as an informant for the police gives you a lot of benefits. You know, you barely see prison when you become a collaborator. The green Bible gets very conveniently dispatched just the very same week Oscar is released from prison. Nobody ever investigates the recipient of the green Bible, and the green Bible confirms point by point here. The green Bible promised to be the handbook of the Nigerian mafia, and for this reason, it struck the collective imagination from the side of the investigators. I think they often fall in love with certain theses and therefore only see elements that can support this thesis. Maybe there are statements from the collaborator saying that in that meeting they discussed some criminal program. Then there are some interceptions that may be mistranslated and therefore could be misleading. From there, they close a circle that then turns into a bubble of soap. Truth and justice can undo this, but they are what they are, and the evidence is overwhelming. My lawyer told me that the prosecution against me is weak, so there is no way they can prove anything. I didn't commit any crime. He said the trial will take about four years. I said, Well, does it really matter, at least four years or five years? One day will come when I will be vindicated. If you cannot prove that I committed any crime at all. So we now choose the long trial. Of course, he was very angry with me. So when prosecutors bring Cesar to trial, they are

Cesar thanks you for correctly trying me, giving me a jury, giving me a public hearing. I'm gonna take the risk of facing the full sentence. Thanks to this choice by Cesar of facing trial, all the contradictions surrounding the Green Bible start to unravel in court. It started with his questioning, asked many questions. Why did you become a right in school? I said, Yes, I was a member of the association in school. I didn't deny that. Why were you arrested? He asked questions, then asked me about the meeting in B Hotel. There was an election among the members there on that meeting that day. I said, Thank God that you believed me. If any crime was discussed in that meeting, I'm sure you would have arrested us on that day. The next was the Green Bible question. Of course, I raised my hands up like this and said, I have never seen or heard about that book called Bible. I presented the great book written in 1978 by students about math and everything there was about school and students and the fighting of injustice. So the judge said, We hours. Then came back reading his judgment. One, that the prosecutor did not do proper investigation before he made the arrest in this matter. Two, whether GCA or FRAT have the capacity to commit Italian mafia. And three, that the Green Bible, which is the only evidence that was presented by the prosecutor, was forged

I believe that the reason why the traditions, customs, and history of Nigeria are not known is due to a process. In my opinion, the entire nation should be part of the Green Association, signing a friendship and unity agreement with people worldwide. Having someone to rely on when needed is essential. Universities have student fraternities, and undoubtedly, there are Confraternities within all of them. However, this is not a valid reason to legalize everything. Claiming that every member of a student union or fraternity is a mafioso would be absurd. The Anti-Mafia code was created to combat one of the most powerful and violent criminal organizations ever born. It is now being recycled to mix with Nigerians as mafiosi, which has deeply influenced the Italian public opinion. The judicial outcomes were minimal, sometimes laughable, but the political repercussions are enduring. I seek justice for the people who were arrested, imprisoned, and incarcerated unjustly. In the history of Nigerian mafia, in my opinion, there are neither winners nor losers because even those who were acquitted in the end did not truly win as they lost everything they had. There are people who can't sleep at night, who tremble at the sound of a distant siren, who can't look their children in the eyes for fear of passing on their own fear of life. They lose everything in practice. As we speak, many people are still in prison. Hundreds of Nigerians are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit

The future is what we see and create by the Grace of God.

Italy’s Hunt for a Mysterious Nigerian Mafia | Bloomberg Investigates

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Bloomberg Originals

The Nigerian mafia has emerged as a dangerous organized crime group in Italy, involved in violence, drug trafficking, and human exploitation, including minors.

Their presence has sparked political controversy and calls for the army to regain control of the territory.

The Italian judiciary's perception of Nigerian confraternities as a cover for mafia organizations has contributed to the criminalization of African immigrants in Italy.

The Nigerian Mafia's Criminal Operations in Italy

The Nigerian criminal organization has intricate initiation rituals involving blood, fire, and a pledge of loyalty.

Through extensive surveillance and phone interceptions, the Italian authorities finally gather evidence of the organization's activities.

A crucial meeting at the Boscolo hotel leads to the discovery that the Green CC Association is intricately connected to the Nigerian Mafia, leading to arrests and a key collaborator providing insider information.

The presence of the mafia in Italy has a devastating impact on the population, causing fear and terror, and leading to tragic events like the violent explosion on the Palermo-Trapani highway.

The mafia's criminal behaviors and influence are documented in the "Green Bible," which outlines their rules and objectives, contributing to the ongoing struggle against the organization.

The fight against the mafia has led to a push for change, including legal innovations like the short trial introduced in the Italian Criminal Code.

Controversy Over the Green Bible and Nigerian Mafia Accusations

The Public Prosecutor's evidence is leading to sentence reductions for those who accept it, causing division among the CasaGRP party and the defense.

A Nigerian politician is unexpectedly accused of mafia involvement in Italy, but the Green Bible, a key piece of evidence, is revealed to be a fake, causing doubt about the accusations.

The politician's past involvement in a student association is highlighted as unrelated to criminal activity, leading to further investigation and questioning of the accusations.

The Unraveling of the Green Bible in Court

Being an informant for the police comes with benefits, such as avoiding prison time.

The Green Bible, which was supposed to be the handbook of the Nigerian mafia, starts to unravel in court as the main witness denies its existence and the judge criticizes the prosecutor's lack of proper investigation.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, the trial takes a turn in favor of the defendant, leading to the unraveling of the case against them.

The Impact of Anti-Mafia Laws on Nigerian Student Organizations

The application of Anti-Mafia laws to Nigerian student fraternities has unfairly influenced public opinion.

Many Nigerians have been unjustly arrested and imprisoned under these laws, causing lasting trauma and loss.

The situation calls for justice and a reevaluation of the use of such laws on Nigerian student groups.