Bari - Trafficking in human beings, enslavement, fights, extortion, robbery, sexual violence and personal injury, exploitation of prostitution: the State Police arrests 32 belonging to the `Nigerian mafias' in Italy and Germany, France, Holland and Malta
The Bari Mobile Squad has performed in the early hours of today's morning in Puglia, Sicily, Campania, Calabria, Marche, Basilicata, Lazio, Emilia Romagna, Veneto and abroad, thanks to the coordination of the Central Operational Service on the national territory and to the activities of international cooperation conducted by the Interpol Division in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Malta, a prison custody order issued by the Gip of the Court of Bari at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office - District Anti-Mafia Directorate, against 32 persons of nationality Nigerian, held responsible, with various roles, for mafia association aimed at facilitating illegal immigration, trafficking in human beings, enslavement, extortion, robbery, personal injury, sexual violence, and the use of white weapons and the exploitation of prostitution and begging.
This is the operation on the Nigerian mafia with the highest number of arrested in Italy.
The suspects are all accused of having been part, together with numerous other unidentified people, of two distinct mafia-type criminal associations, of cultist nature, operating in the province of Bari as autonomous cells of the international brotherhoods called "Supreme Vikings Confraternity - Arobaga ”And“ Supreme Eiye Confraternity ”, which have acted for a long time in order to obtain dominance over the Bari area and to manage their illicit affairs.
The investigations of the Bari Mobile Squad began with the complaints filed, at the end of 2016, by two Nigerian citizens who were guests of the Asylum Seeker Reception Center in Bari, who declared that they had been the victim of beatings, robberies and repeated attempts to influence `enlisted 'among the ranks of a criminal group that was expanding its influence within the Center, later discovered to be that of the so-called“ Vikings ”. The details contained in the complaints made it possible to understand that many of the violence committed by the Nigerian guests of the CARA in the following months were not isolated cases, but were part of a context of clashes between the two main criminal gangs present there, that of the "Vikings" and that of the “Eyie”, the former larger and more violent than the latter. Both recruited new followers through bloody initiation rites consisting of 'tests of courage', to try to prevail over each other and committed violence, reprisals and physical punishments (the so-called `Drill ', which gave the name to today's operation police).
Both teams were characterized by the solidity of the associative link, the planning of crimes of various kinds and for a widespread and constant control by the leaders for the respect of the roles and rules, with the application of bloody methods punitive whenever it is necessary to restore the compromised balance. The two groups have demonstrated that they possess a rudimentary structure with regard to the means employed, but very solid from the point of view of ideology, organization and crimes to pursue, without seeking in any way adhesions with the local mafias (giving proof, as regards the exploitation of prostitution, of supremacy also towards the gangs composed of Albanians and Romanians).
There have been cases of unprecedented violence against those who did not agree to join the brotherhoods or who did not respect their rules. The victims told the investigators of real beatings, lashes, punches, kicks and beatings with the use of bars, clubs and shards of bottles. With regard to Nigerian women, in particular, the psychological harassment reserved for a class considered to be inferior, only good at satisfying the sexual needs of the male community and, above all, at producing money through the exploitation of prostitution, also emerged; in this sense, for example, the figure of the so-called "blue queen" was emblematic, women considered an exclusive property of the "Eyie" group after having sexually granted themselves to the bosses and destined to manage, on their behalf, young prostitutes let them enter the CARA
One of the main illegal activities conducted by the mafia associations in question was precisely that of the exploitation of prostitution. We recall, for example, the case of trafficking and enslavement of a Nigerian woman run by one of the suspects, VICTOR Sunday who, after accompanying her on one of the many boats of illegal immigrants who come to Italy from Libya and had her illegally entered in the CARA, he forced her to prostitute herself and deliver the revenues to the group; to her rebellion, the woman was punished with repeated physical violence, up to the point of igniting the outbreak of a real brawl between the 22 March 2017 gangs. Together with her, the companion was also punished.
Numerous similar cases were recorded during the investigations. The telephone interception services and the feedback on the territory have ascertained that one of the main interests of the criminal gangs was that of letting their compatriots enter the reception center clandestinely and have them prostitute themselves and if, in an initial phase, it was noticed that this practice was managed only within the CARA, later on it was understood that the criminals provided prostitutes to customers even outside the structure, in the streets or in the city dwellings.
To this end, in fact, the members of the cultist-derived groups "Vikings" and the "Eiye" have expanded to occupy properties in this center, used for prostitution, as well as the streets on which to place the young victims to be prostituted. There has also been a "subservience" of Nigerian "mamans" operating locally to the demands of the two gangs relating to the need to "place" girls on the street to make them prostitute.
Another delinquent activity carried out by the two associations was the exploitation of Nigerians who beg in front of supermarkets and other businesses in Bari and its province. Also in this case, the telephone interception services have outlined a cross-section of life and crime within the clear Nigerian community, also comforted by the words of the victims who confirmed to the investigators the submission to the payment of `lace 'on their poor revenues, with delivery of money to members of the gangs or with telephone top-ups on their users.
The investigations of the Police, coordinated by the DDA of Bari, have shed light both on the associative phenomenon as a whole, and on the single and serious facts that have plagued the Bari area in recent years, also causing considerable social alarm and dangers for order and public safety. The episodes that aroused a very serious social alarm were first treated individually. Their understanding and their insertion into a more complex and articulated framework were only possible thanks to the creation of a team of investigators dedicated to the observation of the phenomenon. The stabbing of a Nigerian woman in January 2017, the aforementioned brawl on March 22, 2017 with serious injuries to some of the participants, another clash within the CARA on May 8, 2017, in which one of the running Nigerians lost his life belonging to the team of "Vikings", and again a fight in August of the same year in the streets of the Libertà district and a gang rape committed within the CARA against a Nigerian girl in March 2017, are just some of the violent episodes that took place in the capital and that characterized the ongoing conflict between the two criminal groups.
Among other things, the data gradually acquired at the investigations proved to be perfectly similar to the investigative results that, in the meantime, many other Mobile Teams in Italy have developed in that period, confirming the fact that the Nigerian mafia has taken root the many areas of the national territory (from Veneto to Sicily, from Piedmont to Campania, from the Marche to Puglia) with numerous settlements of cultist-inspired cells, all dedicated to pursuing the same delinquent objectives and all operating according to the classic mafia-style methods based on violence, to Subjugation and silence.
Already in 2011 the Nigerian Embassy in Rome issued a note which read "new criminal activity of a group of Nigerians belonging to secret sects, banned by the government due to violent acts: unfortunately, former members managed to enter Italy and have re-founded the organization here, mainly with criminal aims ”.
The voluminous crime report filed by the Mobile Squad at the Public Prosecutor's Office in April 2019, in which 50 Nigerian citizens were responsible for the crimes described above, clearly highlighted the organizational forms of the two criminal associations. The gangs in question - framed in the wider international scenario of university brotherhoods that arose in Nigeria in the early 50s to counter an elite university attended only by wealthy students, linked to the colonial world - were aimed at favoring promising poor students, to then, in the 70s / 80s, to be financed and armed by military leaders. They are structured in a top-down and military form, and draw their strength from the intimidation, violence and conspiratorial subjugation inculcated in the victims; they are characterized, like homegrown mafias, for the rituals of affiliation - comparable to real tests of strength that are difficult to overcome, as they are based on primitive practices of bodily suffering - for the use of internal codes and words full of symbolism almost incomprehensible, and for a rigid division of roles, so as to be impenetrable and highly efficient.
What emerged was, in a nutshell, the picture of a "State within the State", made up of its own rules and totally oblivious to the laws, but also of many basic norms of civil coexistence.
As an example, one of the two brotherhoods boasted of a dense presence on the Italian territory, divided, according to the words of the protagonists, into "13 nests" (operating cells):
"... Eh ... because now it has become a single command ... because the" world aviary "have already said ... and they did in Edo State ... they want there to be 13" nests "in Italy .."
The language of the associates, from the leaders to the simple participants, was indicative of a strong sense of militant belonging to an associative group:
"... no ... since that day I left Bari, I never came back ... I can't come to Bari without calling you ... and now that I have a home ... and I have everything ... and now that I want to sail the" ship "again in Bari, I can return to Bari on any weekend .. "- The initiation ritualism (baptism) was also described by the words of the associates, for example, with particular drama, the moment in which a candidate did not pass the test of strength expected:
"... this was happening HF started having doubts and maybe he can't get over it, he started bleeding, HF started crying, he started doing strange things, from there you said what kind of person they brought, he is crying ... you said that the boy must go away, that they must tell the boy that he must go away ... "- And again, full of awe, the relationship between the beggars and the leaders of the organizations that demanded from them the bribe on the revenues of alms in front of supermarkets; the poor beggars called their extortionists "Lords".
But the most characteristic element of the mafia methodology is represented by the sanctioning power, which imposes a punishment (drill) on those who do not comply with the rules of the association, that is, they do not become part of it when requested, they do not undertake to pay the periodical membership fee, does not prostitute himself and, in general, does not comply with the directives of the leaders:
"... he told me that his ID complained because if you couldn't" drill "Ifa in the field you had to let him know ... because Ifa comes to town every Sunday ... and he can give orders to have Ifa taken ... he can talk about this fact .. and "drill" him .... " - "... tonight I will cut off the ears of that" Junior "... he behaves badly ... I will make him" drill "... don't worry ... we know what we will do to him ..." - "... Aro, shut up! ... I'm still talking to him ... shut up ... shut up ... but what are you saying? … But what is taking him to this German (ie `brother´, belonging to the criminal group)? ... if you come close to me I will put you under and "drill" you for what you are saying ... Aro I do not hide ... Aro I am not afraid and I cannot hide this ... if you come here I will put you under and "drill" ... "- "Don't hit him ... Eiye doesn't hit him ... you said you were" old set "... there will be" drilling "... you have to observe the protocol ..." - "eh ... you wait for us to come ... if you make a mistake we will" drill "to he ... he knows how it works at home ... and so it works here too ... instead of shouting with him you leave him alone ... when I go out we call him ... when a person makes a mistake ... "- Today's precautionary measure comes to an end of about two years of laborious investigations (2016-2018) in which the investigators of the Anti-EU Crime and Prostitution Section painstakingly reconstructed the network of relationships between numerous Nigerian citizens living in Bari and its province, both inside and outside the CARA, often in an irregular position on the territory national.
Until that moment, in fact, only in 2013, in Bari, was a cell of the "Black Ax" operational, even if, beyond sporadic brawls and clashes between gangs, an activity of the type has never been documented. associative, with organizational-behavioral characteristics such as to determine its mafia.
As for the confraternities that are the subject of today's precautionary measures, it is noted that it was particularly difficult to penetrate their culture, outline the hierarchies and roles, decrypt their language, often encountering objective difficulties connected with the absence of interpreters free from forms of conditioning. towards their community. During the investigation period, the presence of Nigerians inside the CARA stood at around 600 units. At the moment the guests are less than a hundred.
The presence of Nigerian gangs in associative form constitutes an increasingly widespread reality in the national territory, although their existence and operations are difficult to ascertain. Just think of the exponential growth of money flows from Italy to Nigeria over the last few years: only in the year 2018, remittances from Italy to Nigeria, as noted by the Bank of Italy, amounted to 74,79 million, corresponding to twice those of the year 2016. And this on the data of a Nigerian population present in Italy estimated, at the date of the 30.06.2019, in approximately 105 thousand presences, mainly men and not to mention that the Nigerian community has the lowest employment rate in Italy (45,1% compared to 59,1% of non-EU citizens) and the highest unemployment rate (34,2% against the 14,9 of non-EU citizens).
The number of Nigerian women landed in Italy is also constantly increasing: just think that in the 2013 n.433 young Nigerian women have landed in our country, until, only in the middle of the year, 2017, to more than 5000 units.
In view of the execution of pre-trial detention, in the last few weeks, the Bari Mobile Squad has carried out a meticulous research activity of the suspects on the national territory and, through the coordination of the Central Operative Service and the help of many Mobile Teams, has succeeded in to identify the homes of those who had left Bari after the bloodiest violence in which the gangs had been involved. In the same way, the information activities and the channels of connection with the foreign authorities, suitably activated by the Interpol Division of the International Police Cooperation Service, made it possible to identify the EU countries, including Germany, France, Holland and Malta, in which other members of the Nigerian brotherhoods had recently moved.
Completed the preparatory activities for the tracing of the suspects, in today's night in Bari and in the provinces of Taranto, Lecce, Caserta, Rome, Ancona, Matera, Reggio Emilia, Cosenza, Trapani and Rovigo have been carried out the catches, and at the same time the collateral offices Foreign Police were interested by Interpol to implement the European Arrest Warrants signed by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of Bari.