• Die schwarze Axt - News Ausland: Europa - bazonline.ch
    https://bazonline.ch/ausland/europa/die-schwarze-axt/story/15199232

    Im Schutze der unkontrollierten Massenmigration konnten sich neben islamischen Gotteskriegern auch kriminelle Kartelle in Europa festsetzen.

    Dass die allermeisten der afrikanischen und asiatischen Neuankömmlinge in Europa keine Kriegsflüchtlinge sind, sondern Wirtschaftsmigranten im weitesten Sinne, hat sich schon länger herumgesprochen. Und dass sich unter diesen nicht nur dankbare, anpassungswillige und arbeitsfreudige Fachkräfte befinden, weiss man, wenn man den notorisch überproportional hohen Anteil sozialhilfebeziehender Migranten zur Kenntnis nimmt. Oder spätestens seit arabische Jungmänner in der Kölner Silvesternacht hordenmässig Frauen sexuell überfallen haben.

    Auch sind es nicht die wirklich Armen, die nach Europa kommen, sondern Angehörige des in den letzten Jahren auch in Afrika gewachsenen Mittelstands. Nur diese können sich die paar Tausend Dollar leisten, um die Schlepper und Transporteure zu bezahlen. Und im Schutze der unkontrollierten Massenmigration konnten sich neben islamischen Gotteskriegern auch kriminelle Kartelle in Europa festsetzen.

    Fest in nigerianischer Hand ist der heruntergekommene Badeort Castel Volturno bei Neapel. 30’000 Einwohner, davon 20’000 Migranten.

    Vor kurzem berichtete der italienische «Giornale» von einem blutigen Kampf rivalisierender nigerianischer Gangs in Ferrara. Während dreier Tage seien mit Äxten, Macheten und Pistolen bewaffnete Nigerianer immer wieder aufeinander losgegangen und hätten die Stadt mit den weltberühmten Renaissancebauten in eine Kriegszone verwandelt. Fest in nigerianischer Hand sei auch der heruntergekommene Badeort Castel Volturno bei Neapel, berichtete im Februar der französische «L’Obs». 30’000 Einwohner, davon 20’000 Migranten.

    Viele junge, teils minderjährige Nigerianerinnen arbeiten als Billigprostituierte ihre Schlepperschulden ab; die nigerianischen Banden kontrollieren den Kokainhandel und haben sich neben den eingeborenen Syndikaten als «fünfte Mafia» etabliert. Die nigerianische Mafia, auch «Schwarze Axt» genannt, gegründet von Ex-Militärs, sei die «mitleidloseste Mafia weltweit», urteilt der Kriminologe Alessandro Meluzzo.

    In ganz Europa haben sich rechtsfreie, feindlich okkupierte No-Go-Zonen gebildet. Die Brüsseler Bürokraten haben die nationalen Grenzen geschleift, ohne eine funktionierende Alternative zu entwickeln. Europa kann sich aus diesem Desaster nur retten, wenn die einzelnen Länder wieder die Souveränität über ihre Grenzen und ihre Migrationspolitik erobern. (Basler Zeitung)

    Erstellt: 07.08.2018

    #Italie #Black_Axe #Nigeria #Prostitution

  • Von Boko Haram in die Fänge der Mafia | Telepolis
    https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Von-Boko-Haram-in-die-Faenge-der-Mafia-3664425.html

    Der Wiener Zeitung erklärt Expertin Reiterer,, wie die Schlepperei in Nigeria funktioniert: „Den Familien wird erzählt, dass ihre Töchter als Babysitter oder im Computerladen arbeiten können. Selbst wenn die jungen Frauen ahnen, dass sie als Prostituierte arbeiten werden, haben sie noch keine Vorstellungen, wie schlecht die Bedingungen hier wirklich sind.“ Für den Transport würden in Nigeria 45.000 € veranschlagt.

    Im Endeffekt seien es 60.000 bis 80.000 €, die die Frauen hier abarbeiten müssen, da sie auch Essen, Kleidung und die Miete zahlen müssen. „Das erfahren sie aber erst in Europa“, sagt Reiterer. In Europa werde ihnen dann der Pass abgenommen, sie würden eingeschüchtert und isoliert .

    Die nigerianischen Frauen sind dabei ein Beispiel von vielen. Allerdings ist besonders bitter, dass viele von ihnen schon als junges Mädchen sexualisierter Gewalt durch die Terror-Gruppe Boko Haram ausgesetzt waren, deren Herrschaft sie entkommen konnten, um dann, statt mit der erhofften Unterstützung internationaler Hilfsorganisationen ein sorgenfreies Leben aufbauen zu können, irgendwo in Europa auf dem Straßenstrich, in Laufhäusern und Wohnungsbordellen zu landen.

    Gewaltexzesse in Nigeria und die Black Axe in Europa
    Besonders bitter ist das auch deswegen, weil die Weltöffentlichkeit weder von den Gewaltexzessen, denen Menschen in Nigeria ausgesetzt sind, Notiz nimmt noch von der Ausbreitung der islamischen Terrorgruppe Boko Haram in weite Teile des Landes und über dessen Grenzen hinaus noch von den Folgen, die durch die gnadenlose Ausbeutung der Ressourcen wie z.B. die Ölförderung entstehen.

    Auch die gewalttätigen Banden, die aus dem verzweifelten Kampf der Bevölkerung gegen diese Zerstörung aus dem Boden sprießen, nimmt man außerhalb des Landes kaum zur Kenntnis und vom Schicksal der Frauen, die in Europa in der Sex-Industrie brutal ausgebeutet werden, wissen auch nur wenige.

    Die Peiniger sind Mafia-Strukturen wie z.B. die Bruderschaft „Black Axe“ (Schwarze Axt), die sich in Europa insbesondere in Italien etablieren konnten und neben Menschenhandel mit Drogenhandel, Produktpiraterie und Internetbetrug (Nigeria-Connection) Unsummen verdienen. In der Report-Sendung schildert Geri Ferrara, ein Anti-Mafia-Staatsanwalt aus Palermo, dass die Frauen in Italien zur Prostitution gezwungen, aber auch ins Ausland verbracht werden, etwa nach Holland oder auch nach Deutschland.

    Im November 2016 gelang es, 26 Mitglieder der Schwarzen Axt zu verhaften. Das konnte gelingen, weil betroffene Frauen, die „entzaubert“ werden konnten, gegen sie aussagten. In dem Beitrag ist eine nigerianische Frau zu sehen, die mit christlichen Ritualen versucht, die Frauen von ihrem Fluch zu befreien.

    Eine solche Behandlung könne Wochen dauern, sagt sie. Trotzdem sei sie nicht immer wirksam. Nicht selten träfe sie Frauen, von denen sie gedacht habe, sie seien befreit, dann doch wieder an den einschlägigen Orten an. Der Druck, der auf die Frauen ausgeübt wird, und die schier ausweglose Lage in dem von Armut und Gewalt geprägten Italien, lässt ihnen häufig keine andere Wahl.

    #Nigeria #prostitution #Black_Axe

  • Migranten gegen die sizilianische Mafia | Europa | DW | 13.06.2018
    https://www.dw.com/de/migranten-gegen-die-sizilianische-mafia/a-44202955

    In einem Bericht des Forschungszentrums Transcrime über grenzüberschreitende Kriminalität von 2013 wird geschätzt, dass die sizilianische Mafia durch ihre illegalen Aktivitäten etwa halb so viel einnimmt wie die Camorra, die neapolitanische Mafia. Neue, mächtige Organisationen wie die nigerianische Schwarze Axt sind in den letzten Jahren auf den Plan getreten. Im vergangenen Monat wurden 14 Mitglieder der Schwarzen Axt unter anderem wegen Verbindungen zur Mafia verurteilt. Es war das erste Mal, dass ein italienisches Gericht ein solches Delikt einer ausländischen Organisation zuschrieb.

    #Italie #crime #mafia #Black_Axe #Nigeria

  • Organized crime in Nigeria - Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Nigeria

    An example of this are the highly organized confraternities/campus gangs that operate worldwide, for example the Neo Black Movement of Africa. In its own words, the Neo Black Movement of Africa is a “registered non-partisan, non-religious and non-tribal organisation that sincerely seek to revive, retain and modify where necessary those aspects of African culture that would provide vehicles of progress for Africa and her peoples”.

    The current worldwide head of the Neo Black Movement is Augustus Bemigho-Oyeoyibo. A representative of the Neo Black Movement of Africa has claimed to be separate from the Black Axe groups and has engaged in charitable giving.

    Behind the welfare facade of the Neo Black Movement hides indeed the most dreaded Nigerian campus cult, the Black Axe confraternity. NBM usually state that they are not identical with Black Axe for propaganda purposes. While the atrocities committed by campus cult members are well-known, very little is known about other activities of the Neo Black Movement. Offiong claims that the group’s initial goal of promoting black consciousness and fighting for the dignity of Africans and their freedom from neo-colonialism has deteriorated into self-serving behaviour that is “notoriously and brutally violent”. He maintains that violence has in fact become the cult’s official policy.

    Apart from the atrocities in the orbit of NBM, most members of the confraternity are involved in fraud and cyber crime. The main reason to join the confraternity is (besides the pressure and intimidation that is applied to students to join) the fact that the confraternity has infiltrated all spheres of Nigerian society and serves the main purpose of helping its members climb the career ladder and going unpunished for their crimes by means of their nepotistic structure.

    Investigations and a number of arrests of members of NBM by the Italian police brought to light various crimes committed by members of NBM. NBM and other cults were found guilty of smuggling of drugs, extortion, 419 fraud, prostitution, passport falsification, and cloning of credit cards.

    In 2011, eight more members of NBM were arrested in Italy for the same offenses mentioned above. They are referred to as an international criminal organisation and Nigerian Mafia. According to internal documents, the confraternity helps members to immigrate illegally to Europe. Nigerian fraud rings have been exported to Europe, America, and Asia (see external links section). In 2015 a sophisticated car theft ring run by the Black Axe organized crime ring was busted in Toronto, Canada. The ring had stolen more than 500 luxury cars in one year, valued at 30 million US dollars.

    #Nigeria #Black_Axe #crime

  • The Notorious Black Axe Has Put Down Roots in Canada | VICE News
    https://news.vice.com/article/the-notorious-black-axe-has-put-down-roots-in-canada

    December 17, 2015
    The thing that caught the police’s attention was the matching outfits.

    High yellow socks and black berets that featured an emblem of manacled hands, and an axe breaking through the chain.

    The two men were each being investigated separately, one in British Columbia and the other in Toronto, for fraud. But it was their presence together, in identical outfits, that sent investigators on a new trail in the summer of 2013, deep into the heart of a Nigerian subculture, the history of student movements, and the African nation’s political hierarchy.

    Eventually, it led them to a man who said he was threatened with a knife and had watched his car being destroyed in front of him.

    The man was frightened.

    “He knew who all four men were who threatened him with a knife, but only gave two nicknames and misidentified the organization,” Toronto police Detective Constable Tim Trotter said.

    “It’s a phenomenon we get when people in any community are intimidated. They’ll tell you what they think is enough to put you in the right direction, but they haven’t exposed themselves too much by telling you the whole truth.”

    The whole truth has been hard to come by for investigators, but after two years of quietly observing and gathering evidence, they introduced Canadians to an organization most had never heard of: a Nigerian confraternity called The Black Axe, otherwise known as the Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM).

    At the end of October, they laid charges against three men who allegedly defrauded a Toronto woman of $609,000, including one who was linked to the Black Axe.

    The elusive group, feared in Nigeria for its brutality, has been exerting “undue influence over the Nigerian diaspora” in Canada, as well as engaging in organized crime and violence, police said.

    Aside from fraud and money laundering, police allege the outfit is involved in street-level crime — everything from intimidation to kidnapping to the large-scale movement of stolen goods on a transnational scale.

    Last week, Toronto police laid an additional 640 charges and arrested another 18 people allegedly involved in the theft of over 500 SUVs, all worth about $30 million. Six more had outstanding warrants.

    These weren’t “just thieves,” investigators said, but a highly sophisticated crime ring linked to the Black Axe that placed its people in shipping companies and at a government agency. An investigator used a PowerPoint presentation to explain the elaborate scam that involved a locksmith, a “fully operational chop shop,” and people receiving the cars in Ghana and Nigeria. In the course of making the arrests, the officers also found drugs and illegal guns.

    Meanwhile, in June, York Region Police laid over 40 charges against 9 people, who defrauded victims of about $1.5 million. They’re now also looking for links to the Black Axe.

    But conversations with Nigerians in Toronto — leaders in churches, community organizations, and businesses — generally don’t reflect the picture painted by police. Most deny any knowledge of the Black Axe’s presence in Toronto. Those who know of it say they don’t believe it exists outside of Nigeria.

    One man who claimed to be a member and intimately aware of its inner workings suggested the arrests were the result of “a bad egg or two” in an otherwise altruistic organization.

    Whatever the case, police concede that the lack of reliable sources from inside the community has made it especially difficult for them to understand the internal workings of the NBM, its symbols, and the cultural lens through which it’s seen. Fear of the Black Axe runs so deep among the Nigerian diaspora that for years, their criminal activities have gone undetected.

    Police have also been unable to find a single Nigerian academic willing to speak openly about the Black Axe.

    “You try to be objective, and you think, am I wrong? Am I chasing a ghost?” said Trotter.

    It was the spring of 2014, when a 63-year-old Toronto widow met a man online who claimed to be a high-ranking military officer in Afghanistan. They talked often on the phone and over Skype over several months, quickly becoming close and planning a future together. Eventually, they decided that “the general” would come to Canada to live with her.

    So, when he told her he’d been given $2 million for saving a man’s life and needed to bribe officials in Afghanistan to let him take his reward out of the country, she believed him and sent the money. Then his story changed: the money had gotten him arrested, and now he needed to bail himself out. She came through again, after a friend of his who claimed to work for the United Nations and had an ID to prove it, vouched for him in person.

    That friend was actually Akohomen Ighedoise, one of three Toronto men now charged with fraud and one of six indicted by the FBI for his involvement in a scam to defraud victims of $5 billion.

    For the woman, the ordeal has been economically devastating, police told reporters. When they visited her in the winter, her heat was barely on, and she was wearing a jacket, mittens, and a hat inside, they said.

    Ighedoise faces a third charge for laundering money for a criminal organization. Police allege he is the bookkeeper for the Black Axe’s Canada zone.

    Born in 1977 at the University of Benin, the Black Axe started out as a benign group with “high-minded,” progressive ideals, like blackism and pan-African unity. They’ve since transformed into violent, criminal enterprises with significant clout in the Nigerian political system and “zones” around the world, experts say.

    The Black Axe has been linked to powerful politicians in Nigeria, some of whom enlist members, known as Axemen, as foot soldiers and enforcers. They’re known to forcibly recruit new members and violently clash with each other on a regular basis, according to a 2007 Human Rights Watch report. Newspapers in Nigeria are filled with stories of Axemen allegedly kidnapping, raping, and killing rival cult members — and innocent people who get in their way.

    While there isn’t a reliable total of how many people have been killed through cult violence (Black Axe or otherwise), about 200 students and teachers lost their lives between 1996 and 2005, HRW reported. News reports, as well as Facebook and Twitter posts by alleged Axemen show that violence is ongoing.

    “They’re involved in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, racketeering, and killing in second nature,” said Jonathan Matusitz, a University of Central Florida professor who has studied Nigerian gangs, calling this one a “death cult.”

    While Matusitz doesn’t believe people in the West should be concerned about the Black Axe, he says the whole network of confraternities is dangerous because it influences high-profile figures like politicians, bribes them, and places them in power. In turns, politicians turn a blind eye to the cultists’ criminal activities.

    “It’s a network of evil,” he said.

    While police believe the Black Axe has been active in Canada since 2005, the group didn’t land on their radar until that photo surfaced in 2013. Police estimate there are 200 members across the country, with a “substantive presence” in Toronto and Vancouver.

    Other suspected members in Toronto have been linked to up to 20 incidents of violence, according to police. These include someone being hit by a car, a man being kidnapped and assaulted with a bottle in an empty building, and an Axeman being knocked to the ground as an internal disciplinary measure.

    Trotter also described an incident in which a man was attacked by four others.

    “He went into the bathroom to clean himself up, they followed him in there and beat him up again,” he said. “It was only at the insistence of the girlfriend that someone from that location called.”

    Trotter said despite a bar full of witnesses, the investigation couldn’t continue because no one would cooperate.

    “You try to be objective, and you think, am I wrong? Am I chasing a ghost?”
    Investigators in Toronto have been working on compiling a list of suspected members in the city. Through social media, detectives have found other members in uniform and monitored their activities. After tailing a suspected member to a funeral one day, Trotter said police saw “multiple people wearing regalia at the time the body was placed into the hearse.”

    Police are using six criteria to determine whether or not someone is a member — if they meet three, they most likely are, said Trotter.

    Requests from VICE News to various Nigerian community organizations in Toronto went unanswered or were rejected on the basis that no one had any knowledge of the organization. A priest from the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, for example, said he knew one person who might be willing to talk, but that person refused the request.

    Public perception of the group is made all the more confusing by the image the NBM itself puts forth.

    A member of the group’s Canada zone, reached through its Facebook page, squarely rejected how police have described the organization.

    For one, the man, who would only identify himself as Obie, said NBM isn’t the same as the Black Axe, although the two names are used interchangeably in academic research and in the media. He said the NBM is a non-profit charitable community organization that started in the university system.

    “They were pure nationalists, pan Africans,” he said of the founders. “They also had a worldview that someday this organization, it will go from being just a campus organization to something that deals with contemporary world issues.”

    Gun seized by Toronto police in investigation linked to the Black Axe/photo via Toronto police

    Vehicles seized by Toronto police in investigation linked to the Black Axe/image via Toronto police

    In Canada, he said the NBM is involved in community organizing and volunteer work, adding that the group worked with Doctors Without Borders during the Ebola crisis and donated cash and toys to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children two or three times.

    A Sick Kids spokesperson said, however, that the organization donated toys just once, while a Doctors Without Borders Canada representative said she’s never heard of the group.

    Police have also noted a chronic habit of “over-reporting their charitable donations, and underreporting their other stuff”, according to Trotter.

    The Sick Kids donation, for example, “looks like it was a big thing” with members photographed in full regalia, but in reality, they “donated a couple of toys,” he said.

    Obie said it’s not a matter of how much was given, but “the willingness to give and to give freely without expecting anything in return.” 

    Obie also said Ighedoise was suspended as an NBM member “many months” ago, immediately after the group found out about his alleged involvement in criminal activities.

    “It is unfortunate that sometimes, some people in authority give a dog a bad name to hang it,” he wrote in an email, adding that there is “zero tolerance” for violence in the organization.

    “Any organisation that have [sic] been in existence for a remarkable length of time with diverse members are prone to have a bad egg or two, people that have a different philosophy from the organisation,” he wrote.

    A YouTube comment left under the video of the Toronto police’s press conference reflects his comments, and urges police to treat Ighedoise as a “criminal in his own personal entity.”

    “He’s not even a member because according to our records, he’s been excommunicated from the organization for over one year due to some bad conducts [...] NBM is an African organisation, and it’s none of your business as a Canadian.”

    *

    But Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board has had to make it its business on various occasions. At least five people sought refugee status in Canada, claiming they were running from the group.

    In 2007, a Nigerian man seeking refugee status in Canada, who claimed his father forced him to join the NBM at 18, said his initiation involved being beaten and saying an oath with his eyes closed while incantations were recited around him. In 2008, another man said he had to take an oath and take part in a blood ritual that involved him cutting his own finger and sucking his own blood.

    The extremely graphic yet gleeful posts of people gruesomely murdered, hacked to death, are common in the group’s social media presence, which Toronto police say disappeared almost immediately after their October press conference.

    “One thing we talk about is the disconnect between the persona they want to have and what people perceive them as, especially in the Nigerian diaspora,” said Trotter. “You can see Axemen’s Facebook accounts back home, where they’re much less culturally sensitive, and they’ll put up pictures of guys hacked apart, and it’ll have like, 43 likes and refer to the victim as a fool.”

    He, too, has wrestled with the possibility that the Black Axe was an organization with a few bad people. On the one hand, the group has noble stated aims, he said, but there is no proof they have done anything to further those goals. 

    Meanwhile, newspapers in Nigeria are rife with claims the “Black Axe is everywhere, that they run government, that they’re used by the government as thugs and enforcers,” he said. “It’s clear there’s a presence in the government too. How do you reconcile their stated objectives with that? I can’t. What is their final goal? I can’t say.” 

    Follow Tamara Khandaker on Twitter: @anima_tk

    TOPICS: americas, crime & drugs, canada, black axe, neo black movement, toronto police, fraud, nigeria, africa

    #Canada #Nigeria #Black_Axe

  • Italy: After Cosa Nostra, Nigerian Black Axe New Foe for Police
    https://www.occrp.org/en/27-ccwatch/cc-watch-briefs/8095-aly-after-cosa-nostra-nigerian-black-axe-new-foe-for-police

    Published: Thursday, 17 May 2018 13:37
    WRITTEN BY JELTER MEERS

    Sicilian authorities that have been fighting the Cosa Nostra for decades are facing a new type of organized crime: a Nigerian sex and drug trafficking gang called Black Axe, NPR reported Wednesday.

    Black Axe members are arrested (Polizia di Stato)
    After the Cosa Nostra in Palermo had been weakened by police, the Black Axe swooped in. A bloody war between authorities and mafia in the 1990s followed by a crackdown on its leading figures created an opening for new criminal groups to take over.

    “The Nigerian organizations have settled in places where mafia groups don’t have complete control,” said Cesare Sirignano, a magistrate at the National Anti-Mafia Directorate.

    As long as they give the original gangsters a cut or “pizzo” of their drug and prostitution profits and don’t encroach on the mafia’s businesses, “the presence of the Nigerian gangs isn’t a problem for the Italian mafia groups," Sirignano said.

    In Palermo, Black Axe operate from the Ballaro neighborhood, home to the city’s oldest market where the air is filled with vendors screaming in thick Sicilian accents and the smells of fresh produce, meat, fish, olives and cheese.

    But that is not the only place where you can get a taste, or “un assaggio.”

    The Nigerian gang uses the neighborhood’s historic but rundown houses to hold the women, and sometimes underage girls, whom they force to prostitute themselves on the city streets.

    “We have shut down several houses ... most of them rundown, some of them entire old buildings in bad shape in Ballaro ... where these girls would be forced into prostitution,” said former Palermo police officer Carmine Mosca.

    On promises of good jobs, Nigerian women have been trafficked to Italy since the 1980s but there has been a spike in recent years.

    The International Organization for Migration said that in 2016 and 2017, the main nationality of people arriving by sea was Nigeria.

    They estimate that 80 percent of Nigerian women arriving in Italy are potential trafficking victims and said the number of minors is increasing.

    While authorities have the tools, such as anti-mafia laws, to combat new crime groups from their fights against local mafia, the same long struggle has made some cities more susceptible to organized crime newcomers, Sirignano said.

    #Nigeria #Black_Axe #Italie #Mafia #Prostitution

  • Refworld | Nigeria: The Black Axe confraternity, also known as the Neo-Black Movement of Africa, including their rituals, oaths of secrecy, and use of symbols or particular signs; whether they use force to recruit individuals (2009-November 2012)
    http://www.refworld.org/docid/50ebf7a82.html

    Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
    Publication Date 3 December 2012
    Citation / Document Symbol NGA104208.E
    Related Document(s) Nigéria : information sur la Confrérie de la hache noire (Black Axe confraternity), aussi connue sous le nom de Nouveau mouvement noir d’Afrique (Neo-Black Movement of Africa), y compris ses rituels, ses serments du secret et son utilisation de symboles ou de signes distinctifs; information indiquant si elle a recours au recrutement forcé; information sur le traitement réservé par ses membres aux personnes qui s’opposent aux sectes (2009-novembre 2012)
    Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: The Black Axe confraternity, also known as the Neo-Black Movement of Africa, including their rituals, oaths of secrecy, and use of symbols or particular signs; whether they use force to recruit individuals (2009-November 2012), 3 December 2012, NGA104208.E, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50ebf7a82.html [accessed 30 August 2018]

    Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

    1. Background
    Sources indicate that the Black Axe confraternity is a cult (Leadership 27 July 2012; Vanguard 27 July 2012; Coventry Cathedral Feb. 2009, 10). According to Coventry Cathedral, a Church of England’s place of worship that has existed for over 1,000 years (ibid. n.d.) and that has been “extensively involved” in Nigeria since 2002, the Black Axe confraternity and some other cult groups “were formed in the 1980s as tools of the Nigerian military and they in turn formed street cult groups” (ibid. Feb. 2009, 6, 10). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

    2. The Neo-Black Movement of Africa (NBM)
    Sources state that the Black Axe confraternity is also known as the Neo-Black Movement of Africa (NBM) (Daily Trust 3 May 2012; This Day 6 Jan. 2012). However, sources indicate that, according to the NBM, they are not the Black Axe confraternity nor are they a secret cult (Vanguard 11 Jan. 2012; The Guardian 30 Dec. 2009). The Coventry Cathedral states that the Black Axe confraternity is a “splinter group” of the NBM, and indicates that, since 1985, the NBM “sought to dissociate itself from the Black Axe Confraternity’s activities” (Feb. 2009, 97-98).

    According to the NBM’s website, the group was created during the 1977-1978 academic year by nine University of Benin undergraduates who were concerned about the “plight of the Black Man” (NBM n.d.). The NBM website further states that within “a decade of its existence the Movement was operational in most major tertiary institutions in Nigeria,” but later withdrew its operations from university campuses in 1994 due to the “wave of violence” at Nigerian universities that started in the late 1980s (ibid.). Coventry Cathedral indicates that NBM is not a confraternity and excludes students and fraternity members from its organization (Feb. 2009, 97). According to the NBM, they have “Zones” in most large cities across the world, and their headquarters is located in Benin City, Edo State (NBM n.d.).

    Sources indicate that the NBM is legally registered as an organization (Vanguard 11 Jan. 2012) with the Corporate Affairs Commission (Daily Trust 3 May 2012; Nigeria Daily News 30 Dec. 2009). However, sources point out that Rivers State enacted the Secret Cult and Similar Activities (Prohibition) Law in 2004 (Vanguard 19 Aug. 2007; NDPEHRD Aug. 2004, 3). The Black Axe confraternity and the NBM have been banned under this law (ibid.; CODESRIA 2011, 22).

    According to the NBM website, their objectives include: “the redirection of all minds towards Black Realism and Determinism” and teaching people discipline of the body and mind, preventing negative images of Black people, conducting research on traditional African religions, and publishing a regular magazine called Uhuru (NBM n.d.). The NBM ’s magazine Uhuru used to be called the Black Axe Magazine (ibid.). According to the website: “the Axeman (a member of the Neo Black Movement) is always expected to talk with Reason, act with Courage and behave with Grace; this has served as our code of conduct” (ibid.).

    Media sources report that the NBM:

    donated medication to health centres in Uhunmwode local government area of Edo state in March 2010 (Plus News Pakistan 31 Mar. 2010);
    organized free medical treatment, including for malaria and blood checks, to 200 people at Kwale West local government area of Delta State in January 2010 (Vanguard 4 Jan. 2010); and
    provided money for a sick abandoned baby in Ughelli, Delta state in 2009 (ibid. 24 Sept. 2009).
    3. Black Axe Confraternity Recruitment
    A 2007 Human Rights Watch report indicated that the Black Axe confraternity forcibly recruits new members (Oct. 2007, 24). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

    According to Vanguard, a Lagos-based newspaper, the Edo state Police Public Relations Officer indicated that generally, cult activities are secretive (24 Jan. 2011). Information on rituals, oaths of secrecy, and use of symbols or particular signs of the Black Axe confraternity could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

    4. Black Axe Confraternity Cult Violence by State
    On 22 September 2008, the Nigerian Ministry of Education indicated that there has been an upsurge of cult-related violence in tertiary institutions across Nigeria (Nigeria 22 Sept. 2008).

    4.1 Abuja
    The Daily Trust, an Abuja-based newspaper, reports that a clash between the Black Axe confraternity and the Vikings confraternity left a student cult member of the University of Abuja injured in 2009 (7 May 2009). Vanguard also indicates that in 2009 a University of Abuja Black Axe member was arrested for attempted kidnapping of two ministers for ransom (18 Sept. 2009).

    4.2 Delta
    Leadership, an Abuja-based newspaper, states that cult activities, including Black Axe confraternity’s activities, have reached an “alarming” level in Delta state, and are “surprisingly uninterrupted in the various higher institutions in the state” (27 Oct. 2011). Leadership also indicates that rival cults clashed almost daily in January and February 2011, and reports on the death of six people (21 Feb. 2011).

    On 11 August 2011, Vanguard reported that a clash between the Black Axe confraternity and the Mafite cult resulted in the death of two Delta State University students, with unconfirmed sources indicating that five people were killed.

    4.3 Edo State
    In Benin City, Edo State, media sources reported on cult wars between the Black Axe confraternity and the Eiye [also called Eye and Aiye] confraternity which include the following accounts of violence:

    in July 2012, Leadership reported that 4 people were killed in 2 days (27 July 2012), while the Lagos-based newspaper the Guardian reported that 6 suspected cult members were killed (27 July 2012);
    in January 2012, media sources reported on the death of 8 people (This Day 6 Jan 2012; Vanguard 11 Jan. 2012);
    in May 2011, Vanguard reported that 18 people were killed (26 May 2011);
    in January 2011, Vanguard indicated that 10 people were killed (24 Jan. 2011);
    in February 2009, 7 suspected cultists were killed according to Vanguard (23 Feb. 2009);
    Plus News Pakistan indicated that in February 2009, more than 16 people were reportedly killed, including 2 university students and a prominent businessman (11 Mar. 2010).
    Media sources have also reported on cult wars involving the Black Axe confraternity and other cults, including:

    in August 2012, during a clash with the Vikings confraternity at Ambrose Alli University, two students were killed, reportedly after an altercation between a Black Axe member and an anti-cultist student (PM News 7 Aug. 2012; PTI 8 Aug. 2012);
    on 22 October 2010, Vanguard stated that during a clash with Maphite confraternity in Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, 7 people were killed, while police confirmed 3 deaths;
    in March 2010, according to Plus News Pakistan, there was a “renewed bloody clash” with Manfile confraternity (11 Mar. 2010);
    in March 2010, This Day reported that, in a war with the Markvites, 9 cult members were killed (15 Mar. 2010).
    In March 2009, the son of the Chairman of Ovia South West local government council was abducted by people suspected of being cult members (The Nation 16 Mar. 2009; Vanguard 12 Mar. 2009), including members of Black Axe (ibid.). The child was released in exchange for ransom (The Nation 16 Mar. 2009).

    4.4 Ekiti
    Media sources indicate that in July 2011, 13 students at the Ekiti State University were wounded during a clash between the Black Axe confraternity and the Aiye confraternity (Leadership 7 July 2011; Daily Trust 7 July 2011).

    4.5 Imo
    Media sources report that the principal of Holy Ghost College, Owerri survived an attempted assassination in August 2012 by suspected Black Axe members (Vanguard 27 Aug. 2012; Daily Independent 27 Aug. 2012).

    4.6 Lagos
    Vanguard reports on cult wars between the Black Axe and the Eiye confraternities in which “many people” have been killed and “several” have been wounded in March 2012 in Ijanikin, including the death of a 26 year-old who was not a member of any cult group (Vanguard 19 Mar. 2012). The newspaper adds that there are “daily killings and maiming of rival members” of Black Axe and Eiye confraternities in this area (ibid.). On 27 July 2011, 3 people were killed during a clash between the Black Axe confraternity and the Eiye confraternity in Ikorodu (Daily Independent 1 Aug. 2011; The Nation 29 July 2011).

    4.7 Nasarawa
    The Daily Trust reports that a Black Axe confraternity member killed a member of the Vikings cult in September 2011 in Lafia (20 Sept. 2011).

    4.8 Ogun
    The Daily Independent, a Lagos-based newspaper, reports that, in March 2010, in Sagamu, Ogun State, six people were killed in clashes between the Black Axe and Eiye confraternities in a less than a week, including the son of a former council chairman who was reportedly also a cult member (18 Mar. 2010).

    5. Treatment of Anti-cultists
    In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Nigeria, a commission established by the Nigerian government (Nigeria n.d.a) that, among other activities, investigates complaints and provides conflict resolution services (ibid. n.d.b), indicated that the NHRC, which has not conducted “detailed” research on the Black Axe confraternity, has “limited” knowledge of this organization (5 Dec. 2012). However, according to the NHRC, the “observation of facts” indicates that

    [a]s a general rule, Black Axe and other cults do not engage in violent activities against those not involved in cult activities. They are however known to attack anti-cult campaigners through clandestine intimidation and physical attacks. (5 Dec. 2012)

    Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

    6. Black Axe Confraternity’s Connection to Officials
    Sources indicate that clashes between the Black Axe and Aiye confraternities in Benin City are related to the sharing of money that has been given to these cults by politicians (Leadership 27 July 2012; Vanguard 27 July 2012).

    According to a January 2011 article by Vanguard, cultists have been recruited “as thugs” by politicians during primaries (24 Jan. 2011). Leadership newspaper indicates that cults are reportedly supported by people in “high places” such as security agencies (27 Oct. 2011).

    7. State Protection
    According to the National Universities Commission, the federal government has asked the heads of tertiary institutions to take measures to curb cult violence on campuses, including: sanctioning apprehended student cultists, conducting media sensitization campaigns, creating aggressive public campaigns and increasing advocacy efforts (Nigeria 22 Sept. 2008). Further information on whether this was implemented could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

    Media sources indicate that police arrested suspects in about ten of the incidents of violence listed in Section 4 (Daily Trust 7 May 2009; Vanguard 18 Sept. 2009; Leadership 21 Feb. 2011; This Day 6 Jan. 2012; Vanguard 26 May 2011; ibid. 24 Jan. 2011; ibid. 12 Mar. 2009; Leadership 7 July 2011; Daily Trust 7 July 2011; Vanguard 19 Mar. 2012; Daily Trust 20 Sept. 2011). Information on whether some Black Axe members were charged or sentenced for acts of violence could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

    Leadership indicates that, according to Nigerians living in Delta state, the federal government, the police, and traditional and religious institutions show a “lack of commitment in addressing the underlying causes of cult-related violence” (21 Feb. 2011).

    According to the Vanguard, the Edo state Police Commissioner said that the federal government is “’doing its best’” to tackle the problem of cult violence in Edo state, “’but there are areas that still need improvement’” (Vanguard 24 Jan. 2011). The Edo state Police Commissioner reportedly also said that police are facing a shortage of patrol vehicles, adding that no divisional operational department has more than one police vehicle (ibid.).

    This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

    References
    Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). 2011. Eghosa E. Osaghae, Augustine Ikelegbe, Omobolaji O. Olarinmoye, and Stephen I. Okhomina. Youth Militias, Self Determination and Resource Control Struggles in the Niger-delta Region of Nigeria. CODESRIA Research Report No. 5. [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Coventry Cathedral. February 2009. Stephen Davis. The Potential for Peace and Reconciliation in the Niger Delta. [Accessed 26 Sept. 2012]

    ___. N.d. “Our Heartbeat.” [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Daily Independent [Lagos]. 27 August 2012. Anolu Vincent and Bassey Inyang. “Gunmen Kill Ex-CBN Director, Nwosu, in Owerri.” [Accessed 26 Nov. 2012]

    ___. 1 August 2011. Emmanuel Nzomiwu and Femi Ogbonnikan. “Ten Die, Houses Razed in Enugu Tanker Explosion.” (Factiva)

    ___. 18 March 2010. Wisdom Patrick, Onoja Audu and Segun Adeleye. “Thirteen Killed in Fresh Jos Violence - Cult Clash Claims Six in Sagamu.” (Factiva)

    Daily Trust [Abuja]. 3 May 2012. Nurudeen Oyewole. “’21 Cult Groups Infiltrate Secondary Schools’.” (Factiva)

    ___. 20 September 2011. Hir Joseph. “State Security Services Raid Cultists Hideouts, Arrests 28 Suspects.” (Factiva)

    ___. 7 July 2011. Doyin Adebusuyi. “Pandemonium at Ekiti Varsity as Cultits Exchange Gunfire.” (Factiva)

    ___. 7 May 2009. Abubakar Sadiq Isah. “Uniabuja Expels Five Over Cult Activities.” (Factiva)

    The Guardian [Lagos]. 27 July 2012. Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu and Michael Egbejule. “Six Die in Cult Violence.” [Accessed 23 Nov. 2012]

    ___. 30 December 2009. “Nigerian Police Arrest Thirty Suspects Over Recent Violent Clashes.” (Factiva)

    Human Rights Watch. October 2007. Criminal Politics. Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria. [Accessed 25 Sept. 2012]

    Leadership [Abuja]. 27 July 2012. Patrick Ochoga. “Six Feared Killed in Renewed Cult War in Edo.” (Factiva)

    ___. 27 October 2011. Kola Niyi-Eke. “Battling Cultism in Delta.” (Factiva)

    ___. 7 July 2011. Abiola Alo. “Suspected Cultists Terrorise Ekiti Varsity.” (Factiva)

    ___. 21 February 2011. Kola Niyi-Eke. “Cultists Kill Pregnant Women, 6 Others.” (Factiva)

    The Nation [Lagos]. 29 July 2011. Titilayo Banjoko. “Three Killed in Cult’s Clash.” [Accessed 26 Nov. 2012]

    ___. 16 March 2009. Osagie Otabor. “Abducted Council Boss’s Son Released.” [Accessed 26 Nov. 2012]

    Neo-Black Movement of Africa (NBM). N.d. Chima Oji. “A Brief History of Neo Black Movement of Africa.” [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Niger Delta Project for Environment, Human Rights and Development (NDPEHRD). August 2004. Small Arms Project. A Harvest of Guns. [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Nigeria. 5 December 2012. National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

    ___. 22 September 2008. National Universities Commission. “FGN Steps Up Fight Against Cult-Related Violence in Tertiary Institutions.” Monday Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 37. [Accessed 27 Sept. 2012]

    ___. N.d.a. “The Commission.” [Accessed 18 Dec. 2012]

    ___. N.d.b. “Activities of the Commission.” [Accessed 18 Dec. 2012]

    Nigeria Daily News. 30 December 2009. Tunji Omofoye (Osogbo) and Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu. “Police Arrest, Arraign 30 over Violence.” [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Plus News Pakistan. 31 March 2010. “Nigeria: NBM Donates Drugs Worth N1m to Uhunmwode LG.” (Factiva)

    ___. 11 March 2010. “Nigeria: 2 Benin-based Actors Shot Dead.” (Factiva)

    PM News [Lagos]. 7 August 2012. Jethro Ibileke. “Cult War Leaves 2 Nigerian Students Dead.” [Accessed 4 Oct. 2010]

    Press Trust of India (PTI). 8 August 2012. “Two Nigerian Students Killed in Gang Violence.” (Factiva)

    This Day [Lagos]. 6 January 2012. Adibe Emenyonu. “Eight Killed in Renewed Cult War.” (Factiva)

    ___. 15 March 2010. Adibe Emenyonu. “Another Bomb Scare in Edo.” (Factiva)

    Vanguard [Lagos]. 27 August 2012. Chidi Nkwopara. “Cleric Escapes Suspected Assassins Bullets in Owerri.” (Factiva)

    ___. 27 July 2012. Simon Ebegbulem and Gabriel Enogholase. “Three Killed in Renewed Cult War in Benin.” (Factiva)

    ___. 19 March 2012. Ifeanyi Okolie. “Police Raid Hideout of Cultists in Lagos.” (Factiva)

    ___. 11 January 2012. Simon Ebegbulem. “Group Denies Involvement in Cult War.” (Factiva)

    ___. 11 August 2011. Emma Amaize and Bulou Kosin. “Two Shot Dead as Cultists Clash in Abraka University.” (Factiva)

    ___. 26 May 2011. Simon Ebegbulem. “Police Parade 31 Suspected Cultists.” (Factiva)

    ___. 24 January 2011. Simon Ebegbulem. “How Cultists Prepared to Set Benin on Fire.” (Factiva)

    ___. 22 October 2010. Simon Ebegbulem. “Seven Die in Renewed Cult War in Ambrose Alli Varsity.” (Factiva)

    ___. 4 January 2010. Festus Ahon. “Group Gives Free Medical Treatment to 200 at Kwale.” (Factiva)

    ___. 24 September 2009. “Nigeria: Group Aids Abandoned Baby.” [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    ___. 18 September 2009. Ise-Oluwa Ige. “Education, Labour Ministers Escape Kidnap Plot.” (Factiva)

    ___. 12 March 2009. Simon Ebegbulem. “Gunmen Abduct Ovia S-West LG Boss’ Son.” (Factiva)

    ___. 23 February 2009. Patience Ogbodo and Simon Ebegbulem. “Death Toll Rises to 11 in Bauchi Crisis.” (Factiva)

    ___. 19 August 2007. George Onah. “Rivers Battles 103 Cult Groups - The Genesis of Problem; Solution, by Ex-Militants.” [Accessed 15 Nov. 2012]

    Additional Sources Consulted
    Oral sources: Attempts to contact the following representatives and organizations were unsuccessful within the time constraints of this Response: author of Secret Cults in Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions; Human Rights and Justice Group International; lecturer, School of Law, University of Leicester; National Association of Nigerian Students; National Universities Commission; Nigeria — Federal Ministry of Education; professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

    Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; ecoi.net; The Jamestown Foundation; Minority Rights Group International; Nigeria — Federal Ministry of Education; United Nations — Integrated Regional Information Network, Refworld; United States Department of State.

    Copyright notice: This document is published with the permission of the copyright holder and producer Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). The original version of this document may be found on the offical website of the IRB at http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en. Documents earlier than 2003 may be found only on Refworld.

    #Nigeria #Harmful_traditional_practices #Black_Axe #Canada

  • NBM disowns Black Axe over arrest of 120 suspected cultists NBM disowns Black Axe over arrest of 120 suspected cultists % - The Sun News– The Sun News
    http://sunnewsonline.com/nbm-disowns-black-axe-over-arrest-of-120-suspected-cultists

    12th July 2018 Adewale Sanyaolu

    The Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM) has denied having any relationship with a group named Black Axe, saying the use of its logo by the group was an infringement on its copyright.

    Recall that the Police had, last week, arrested 120 persons alleged to be members of Black Axe group during the celebration of 777 in preparation for initiation into the group in the Ikorodu area of Lagos.

    The NBM, in a statement by its National President, Engr. Felix Kupa, said its attention had been drawn to the picture accompanying the arrest of 120 suspected cultists in Lagos, which is currently circulating in various online website and blogs, adding that NBM has no approval of any ceremony on the said date.

    ‘‘While we commend the Police Force for the prompt enforcement of law and order, we are however constrained to make this public announcement in view of our noticing a possible infringement on our organizations copyrighted names and logo in the accompanying picture.

    “For the non-discerning, the banner in the accompanying picture may seem as ours and therefore may have a damaging effect on our brand name in the eyes of those who are not able to tell the difference between the one in the picture and ours.

    “We hereby restate, as we always have when our attention is drawn to possible abuse of our names and logo by imposters.”

    The NBM said as a law-abiding organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and which facts have severally been reaffirmed by various courts of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have no relationship with Black Axe.

    “The banner is not ours and we state without any equivocation that none of our member is among the arrested persons.

    “We have instructed our solicitors to liaise with the police to ascertain who or those we will be pressing a case of copyright violation against.

    “We as an organisation remain resolute in the aims and objectives guiding our organisation regardless of the attempts by imposters to distract us from our chosen path.

    “We urge the Police Force to, within the context of due process; charge any infractions of the laws to the court for proper adjudication,’’ Kupa said.

    NBM disowns Black Axe over arrest of 120 suspected cultists NBM disowns Black Axe over arrest of 120 suspected cultists % - The Sun News– The Sun News
    http://sunnewsonline.com/nbm-disowns-black-axe-over-arrest-of-120-suspected-cultists

    12th July 2018 Adewale Sanyaolu

    The Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM) has denied having any relationship with a group named Black Axe, saying the use of its logo by the group was an infringement on its copyright.

    Recall that the Police had, last week, arrested 120 persons alleged to be members of Black Axe group during the celebration of 777 in preparation for initiation into the group in the Ikorodu area of Lagos.

    The NBM, in a statement by its National President, Engr. Felix Kupa, said its attention had been drawn to the picture accompanying the arrest of 120 suspected cultists in Lagos, which is currently circulating in various online website and blogs, adding that NBM has no approval of any ceremony on the said date.

    ‘‘While we commend the Police Force for the prompt enforcement of law and order, we are however constrained to make this public announcement in view of our noticing a possible infringement on our organizations copyrighted names and logo in the accompanying picture.

    “For the non-discerning, the banner in the accompanying picture may seem as ours and therefore may have a damaging effect on our brand name in the eyes of those who are not able to tell the difference between the one in the picture and ours.

    “We hereby restate, as we always have when our attention is drawn to possible abuse of our names and logo by imposters.”

    The NBM said as a law-abiding organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and which facts have severally been reaffirmed by various courts of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have no relationship with Black Axe.

    “The banner is not ours and we state without any equivocation that none of our member is among the arrested persons.

    “We have instructed our solicitors to liaise with the police to ascertain who or those we will be pressing a case of copyright violation against.

    “We as an organisation remain resolute in the aims and objectives guiding our organisation regardless of the attempts by imposters to distract us from our chosen path.

    “We urge the Police Force to, within the context of due process; charge any infractions of the laws to the court for proper adjudication,’’ Kupa said.

    #Nigeria #Black_Axe

  • Shadowy Black Axe group leaves trail of tattered lives - The Globe and Mail
    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/shadowy-black-axe-group-leaves-trail-of-tattered-lives/article27244946

    Canadian police say they are fighting a new kind of criminal organization.

    The signs began to appear two years ago: photos on Facebook of men wearing odd, matching outfits.

    Then there were stories, even old police files, attached to the people in the photos: a kidnapping, a man run over by a car, brutal beatings over what seemed to be a small slight.

    Mapping a secret criminal hierarchy for the first time is a rare kind of detective work. So when two Toronto police officers and an RCMP analyst in British Columbia started documenting the existence of something called the “Black Axe, Canada Zone,” they could not have predicted it would take them to funerals, suburban barbecue joints and deep into African history before they understood what they were seeing.

    The Black Axe is feared in Nigeria, where it originated. It is a “death cult,” one expert said. Once an idealistic university fraternity, the group has been linked to decades of murders and rapes, and its members are said to swear a blood oath.

    Most often, the group is likened to the Mob or to biker gangs, especially as it spreads outside Nigeria.

    An investigation by The Globe and Mail that included interviews with about 20 people found that “Axemen,” as they call themselves, are setting up chapters around the world, including in Canada.

    Like any criminal organization, it focuses on profit, police say. But instead of drug or sex trafficking, it specializes in a crime many consider minor and non-violent: scamming.

    What police have also learned is that, when done on an “industrial” level as part of a professional global network, scams ruin lives on a scale they have rarely seen.

    Two weeks ago, at a news conference attended by FBI officers, Toronto police announced they had taken part in an international crackdown on a money-laundering network through which more than $5-billion flowed in just over a year. Two local men charged with defrauding a Toronto widow of her life’s savings will eventually face extradition to the United States on money-laundering charges, they said.

    Online fraud is fluid, global and hard-to-track, but it often requires local operatives. Several Toronto-area residents have been defrauded of at least $1-million each in the past two years, and police allege the money was wired with the help of Canadian residents linked to the Black Axe, and sometimes it was handed to the group’s associates in person. The recipients then sent the money ricocheting through bank accounts around the globe, with trusted members in countries on every continent helping with the transfers before it disappeared.

    The sophistication of the money-laundering scheme reflects the efficiency of the scams, in which several people assume false identities and mix reality – bank accounts, real names and real websites – with fake documents.

    The police added an extra charge for one of the men they arrested, Akohomen Ighedoise, 41: “participating in a criminal organization.”

    Officers said in an interview they seized documents that will prove in court that Mr. Ighedoise separately helped a network of fraudsters launder money, that the fraudsters are members of the Black Axe and that he is their bookkeeper. The charge is the first time a Canadian has been publicly linked to the group.

    Interviews with police, gang experts and Nigerian academics paint a picture of an organization both public and enigmatic, with an ostensible charitable purpose as well as secret codes and a strict hierarchy. Police say it has grown to 200 people across Canada.

    Officers in Canada first heard the name “Black Axe” less than two years ago, said Tim Trotter, a detective constable with the Toronto Police Service. They are working quickly, trying to stop the group from becoming entrenched.

    “I mean, 100 years ago, law enforcement dealt with the same thing, the Sicilian black hand, right? It meant nothing to anybody except the Sicilian community,” Det. Constable Trotter said. “And that’s what we have here – that’s what we believe we have here.”

    **

    Many scam victims lose a few thousand dollars. Soraya Emami, one of Toronto’s most recent victims, lost everything, including many friends.

    In 1988, Ms. Emami fled her native Iran with her four sons. Her husband was jailed by the regime and his passport was held for years. Ms. Emami flew to Canada and became a real estate agent in North York.

    It took 30 years to save for a nice house in quiet Stouffville, Ont. The rest of her earnings went to her boys, who grew up to be a doctor, an engineer, a computer engineer and a bank manager. Last year, the youngest – a fifth son, born in Canada – began university. She and her husband had never reunited, and for the first time in decades, Ms. Emami thought about dating.

    “My kids grow up, and I feel lonely,” said the 63-year-old, who has long, wavy black hair. “I didn’t know how, and because I’m not [used to] any relationship, I feel shy.”

    Ms. Emami saw a TV commercial for Match.com and joined, hesitantly. A few days later, she told a friend she had heard from a tanned, white-haired, very nice geologist. Fredrick Franklin said he lived just 45 minutes away, in Toronto’s wealthy Bridle Path neighbourhood.

    He had spent years in Australia, and when they talked on the phone, she could not always understand his thick accent at first. He called her several times a day from Vancouver, where he was on a business trip, then from Turkey, where he travelled on a short contract. He was to fly home via Delta airlines on May 5. She would pick him up from the airport, and they would finally meet.

    “I am a simple man in nature, very easy going,” he wrote in an e-mail, telling her about his son and granddaughters. “I have done the Heart and Stroke ride in Toronto for the past 2 years, have also done the MS ride from London to Grand Bend.”

    A few days before his return date, Mr. Franklin called Ms. Emami in a panic. His bank had told him someone had tried to gain access to his account, he said. He could not clear it up from rural Turkey, so would she mind calling the bank and reporting back with his balance? He e-mailed the phone number for SunTrust bank, a 10-digit account number and a nine-digit tax ID number.

    She spoke to a bank teller. The balance, she was told, was $18-million.

    A few days later, Mr. Franklin asked for a small favour – could she send him a new phone and laptop – saying he would repay her upon his return. She acquiesced, believing he could pay her back.

    Within a few weeks, she lost half a million dollars, and the scam would cost her the home in Stouffville.

    What perplexes police about some of the Toronto romance frauds is not how the victims could be so naive, but how the fraudsters could be so convincing.

    The SunTrust account appears to be real, The Globe determined after retracing the steps Ms. Emami took to access it. The bank said it could not verify the account’s existence, as that was client-related information.

    In the course of the scam, Ms. Emami spoke to at least five people other than the Aussie geologist, including two in person.

    In June, in what they called Project Unromantic, York Regional Police charged nine local people in several cases, including that of Ms. Emami, that added up to $1.5-million. They considered the criminals to be internationally connected. “We don’t know who’s at the top, but there seems to be a hierarchy,” Detective Courtney Chang said.

    The Toronto police believe the crimes that led to their charges against Mr. Ighedoise are linked to the ones in York Region.

    *

    Canadian police came across the Black Axe by happenstance. In 2013, an RCMP analyst in Vancouver was investigating a West Coast fraud suspect and found a photo of him on Facebook with another man, said Det. Constable Trotter (the analyst would not speak to The Globe). Both were wearing unusual clothes and seemed to be at a meeting in Toronto.

    The analyst discovered the second man was under investigation by Toronto financial crimes detective Mike Kelly, an old partner of Det. Constable Trotter. The analyst e-mailed Det. Constable Kelly to ask if he knew the significance of what the two men in the photo were wearing.

    The uniform of the Black Axe is a black beret, a yellow soccer scarf and high yellow socks. These items often have a patch or insignia showing two manacled hands with an axe separating the chain between them, which sometimes also says “Black Axe” or “NBM,” standing for “Neo-Black Movement,” another name for the group. They often incorporate the numbers seven or 147.

    The group tries to maintain a public image of volunteerism. It has been registered as a corporation in Ontario since 2012 under the name “Neo-Black Movement of Africa North America,” with Mr. Ighedoise among several people listed as administrators. In the United Kingdom, said Det. Constable Trotter, it has been known to make small donations – to a local hospital, for example – and then claim to be in a “partnership” with the legitimate organization.

    In the GTA, the group got itself listed publicly in 2013 as a member of Volunteer MBC, a volunteer centre serving Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. But after expressing an interest in recruiting volunteers, the group involved never posted an ad, and staff at the centre said when they tried to follow up, they found the three yahoo.com addresses on file were no longer working.

    Police found plenty of photos on social media of men in Axemen uniforms at what were said to be conferences or events.

    Det. Constable Kelly and Det. Constable Trotter compiled a list of people in Canada photographed wearing Axemen outfits. From a car, they watched some of them attend a funeral. One mourner had yellow socks and a yellow cummerbund with NBM on it, Det. Constable Trotter said. The rest were dressed normally. Near the end of the ceremony, “all of a sudden the berets and everything came out, and then they put the coffin into the earth,” he said.

    As they added names to their list, the investigators checked each one for connections to previous cases.

    What they found were 10 to 20 episodes of serious violence over the past few years clearly linked to members of the group, many of them at a Nigerian restaurant in northwest Toronto, Det. Constable Trotter said. One man had been run over by a car; another was allegedly kidnapped and beaten with a liquor bottle for a day in an abandoned building; a man was knocked to the ground for refusing to fetch another man a beer. Witnesses generally refused to talk.

    In one incident, a group of men had insulted another man’s girlfriend, and when he objected, they “beat the living hell” out of him, leaving him with cranial fractures, Det. Constable Trotter said.

    “Without the understanding of the context, it’s just a bar fight,” he said. “But when we understand who those people were, and we realize, oh, they’re all affiliated to the group … that’s why no one called [911]. And that’s why, when the police came, suddenly, oh no, those cameras don’t work. And that’s why, out of a bar full of people, the only witness was his girlfriend.”

    That case and the kidnapping case are before the courts, Det. Constable Trotter said. The Globe tried to search for all court records linked to the bar’s address over the past few years, but was told such a search is impossible.

    Police have six criteria to identify members of the group, Det. Constable Trotter said. If a person meets three of the six, he is considered a likely member.

    Police have documents that show when certain people were “blended” or initiated into the group, including some in Toronto, he said. Members live mostly in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

    “There’s evidence that they’ve been active since 2005, so that’s a decade’s worth of ability to lay under the radar and become ensconced in the criminal community,” he said.

    To set up scams, they work from cafés or home and are “fastidious” about deleting their online history, Det. Constable Kelly said.

    “They have names, titles, they show respect,” Det. Constable Trotter said. “They pay dues to each other. Individuals are detailed by higher-ranking individuals to do things.”

    As they learned of the group’s fearsome reputation in Nigeria, the officers began to equate it more with established Canadian organized crime. At Afrofest in Woodbine Park one summer, a group of Axemen walked through in full uniform – not something anyone from the Nigerian community would do lightly, Det. Constable Trotter said. “I wouldn’t wear a Hells Angels vest if I wasn’t a Hells Angel.”

    He began to worry the group’s brazenness would signify to the community that “Axemen are here. And they’re open about it, and the police are doing nothing.”

    *

    Fraternities such as the Black Axe were born during an optimistic time in Nigeria’s recent history, and at first they reflected it. In the postcolonial 1970s, they were modelled after U.S. fraternities. They attracted top students and were meant to foster pan-African unity and Nigeria’s future leaders.

    When the country descended into widespread corruption after its oil boom, the fraternities split into factions and violently sought power on campuses, trying to control grades and student politics and gain the loyalty of the richest, best-connected students.

    Through the 1990s and 2000s, the groups inspired terror: Students were hacked to death or shot in their sleep, and professors were murdered in their offices in what seemed to be random attacks. Researchers say such crimes were often assigned to new members in their late teens to prove their allegiance after a painful hazing in an isolated cemetery or forest.

    “Sometimes, they are given some tough assignments like raping a very popular female student or a female member of the university staff,” Adewale Rotimi wrote in a 2005 scholarly article.

    Raping the daughters of rich and powerful families, or the girlfriends of enemies, was another tactic of the groups to prove their dominance, Ifeanyi Ezeonu wrote in 2013.

    In addition to innocent victims, one West African organization fighting cult violence says more than 1,700 fraternity members died in inter-group wars in a 10-year span. The groups were outlawed, and much of their ritualistic element – night-time ceremonies, code words – seemed to evolve to avoid detection, said Ogaga Ifowodo, who was a student in Nigeria during the 1980s and later taught at Cornell and Texas State universities.

    “Early on … you could distinguish them by their costume,” he said. “The Black Axe, they tended to wear black berets, black shirt and jeans.”

    The transformation was not a coincidence, Mr. Ifowodo said.

    “At that time, we were under military dictatorships, and they had actually propped up the now-secret cults as a way of weakening the students’ movements,” he said. “It violates something that I think is sacred to an academic community, which is bringing into campus a kind of Mafia ethos.”

    But this does not explain whether, or how, the fraternities could morph into a sophisticated global crime syndicate.

    In Nigeria, the groups are not associated with fraud, said Etannibi Alemika, who teaches at Nigeria’s University of Jos. Mr. Ifowodo agreed. However, he also backed Toronto Police’s conclusion that Black Axe is one and the same as the Neo-Black Movement. In a briefing document posted online, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board says the two are closely linked, but speculates that the Black Axe is a “splinter group” of the NBM.

    The NBM is known to carry out fraud, said Jonathan Matusitz, a professor at the University of Central Florida who has studied Nigerian fraternities. He said the group’s members have also been linked, mostly in Nigeria, to drug trafficking, pimping, extortion, and the falsification or copying of passports and credit cards.

    “I think that the NBM movement is more about scamming people, and it has some associations with the Black Axe, which kills people,” he said. “Have they joined forces to have like a super-group? I hope not.”

    Despite police fears, several people interviewed by The Globe, mostly business owners, said they had never heard of the Black Axe before the police news conference last week.

    Kingsley Jesuorobo, a Toronto lawyer who has many Nigerian-Canadian clients, said he has never heard of anyone being intimidated by the group.

    Mr. Jesuorobo said he is familiar with the Black Axe in the Nigerian context, but cannot imagine it posing a real threat in Canada. It is more likely that former members gravitate to each other for social reasons, he said.

    “It would be a case of comparing apples and oranges to look at how these guys operate – the impunity that characterizes their actions – in Nigeria, and then sort of come to the conclusion that they can do the same thing here,” he said.

    For Nigerian-Canadians, a cultural minority working hard to establish themselves, the idea is very troubling, he said.

    “If these things are true, it would be a bad omen for our community,” he said.

    *

    After confirming her love interest’s $18-million bank balance, Ms. Emami did not hear from him for a few days. When they spoke again, she told him she had worried. He responded that it was a sign of how close they had become; she had sensed something had happened.

    The geologist said that during his contract in Turkey, he had been in a mining accident. He was injured and could not get to Istanbul to replace his phone and laptop, which had been destroyed, so would she buy new ones and send them by courier? Ms. Emami went to the Apple Store at Fairview Mall and called him, asking if he could pay with his credit card over the phone. He said the store would not allow it, and the employee agreed. So she bought the $4,000 laptop and phone and shipped them.

    A few days later, he called again: He needed $80,000 to pay the salary of an employee, promising to repay with interest. She told him she would have to borrow from her son, but he reassured her, and she wired the money in several instalments.

    The day of his flight, a man called and said he was Mr. Franklin’s lawyer and was with him at the Istanbul airport. Someone injured in the mining accident had died, he said, and Mr. Franklin owed $130,000 to his family or he would go to jail.

    “He’s calling me, he’s crying to me,” she said. “I didn’t have any choice. I go to friends and everybody I know. Because you know, when you’re trying to be a good person, everybody trusts you. …Whatever I asked, they give me.”

    Even a friend of a friend, a cab driver, lent her thousands. “He told me, you know, dollar by dollar I collected this money,” she recalled.

    Mr. Franklin sent her details of his rebooked flight, and she promised to pick him up and cook a meal. He would love that, he said; he liked chicken.

    “You don’t believe how much food I make for him,” she said.

    She was waiting with the packed-up meal the morning of his flight when the phone rang again. It was another lawyer, this time at the Frankfurt airport, he said. Mr. Franklin owed $250,000 in tax before he could leave the country with a valuable stone.

    “My heart is just – crash,” she said. “I was crying on the phone. I said, ’Please don’t do this to me. … Why are you doing this to me? I told you from the first day, I’m borrowing this money from people.’”

    A man saying he was Mr. Franklin’s son, who also had an Australian accent, called and told her he had remortgaged his house to save his father and might lose custody of his children because of it. Ms. Emami pulled together $158,000. When her bank would not let her transfer the money, she was instructed to meet a man and a woman in person who deposited it into their accounts.

    Ms. Emami’s son and her manager at work persuaded her to go to police. When officers told her Mr. Franklin was not real and the money was likely gone for good, they called a psychiatrist to help her grasp the news.

    She cannot pay her bills or afford groceries, her credit rating is destroyed and she is hunting for work despite crippling headaches. On Oct. 27, she was served with notice that she will lose her house in Stouffville in 20 days.

    “I can’t sleep,” she said recently, crying.

    She had always considered it her “duty” to help people in need, she said. Now her friends, even her sons, are angry that the scam impoverished them as well.

    “It’s my life, it’s my relationships,” she said. “And after 30 years living here with five kids, you know, I can’t live in the street. I can’t go to the shelter.”

    *

    Other local women describe the lengths fraudsters went to to blend truth and fiction. One received a forged Ontario provincial contract. Two victims in York said the scammers impersonated an Edmonton mining executive. The fraudsters build Facebook and LinkedIn accounts that seem to be populated by friends and family.

    “When we Google them, they do seem real,” one woman said.

    Daniel Williams of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, a federal intelligence-gathering agency on fraud, said the scammers profit from economies of scale. “What they did to you, they were doing to 8,000 people that day,” he said.

    The agency gets more calls from fraud victims a day than it can answer, sometimes exceeding 2,000. Staff look for waves of calls complaining of the same methods.

    Authorities estimate they are only ever aware of about 1 per cent to 5 per cent of fraud committed globally, Mr. Williams said. Many victims do not believe they have been scammed or will not report it out of embarrassment.

    Fraudsters, sometimes using credit checks, also home in on well-off victims for special treatment, Det. Constable Kelly said.

    “It’s just like, oh, we’ve got somebody on $100,000 level, let’s steer this to this person,” he said.

    The amount taken from Toronto victims alone is “absolutely astonishing,” he said.

    “If you were going to distribute cocaine, for example, you have to buy that cocaine from another smuggler somewhere, and you have to put up money for that,” he said.

    “In fraud, what is your put-up? What is your overhead? Your commodity that you’re trading in, that you’re selling, is BS. BS is cheap, it’s abundant, it’s infinite. You know, it can be replicated again and again and again and again. … And that’s why it’s a better business.”

    Fraudsters based in Canada work with people in Kuala Lumpur, in Tokyo, in Lagos, Det. Constable Kelly said.

    At the turn of the 20th century in New York, Italian-owned banks started suffering bombings, and homes were mysteriously burned down. Police heard the incidents happened after warnings from something called the “black hand.” But no officers spoke Italian, and investigations were stymied.

    It was not until the 1950s that widespread police crackdowns began. By that time, the group now known as the Mafia had spread around the world and made new alliances. The FBI estimates the organization has about 25,000 members and a quarter-million affiliates worldwide, including about 3,000 in the United States.

    Police hope the charge against Mr. Ighedoise will send an early message to Canada’s Axemen. York and Toronto officers are working to confirm connections between the fraud ring that impoverished Ms. Emami and the ring that Mr. Ighedoise is alleged to help lead.

    At their recent press conference, they appealed to the Nigerian community to report instances where the Black Axe has “intimidated” others.

    They want to know how ambitious the group really is, Det. Constable Trotter said, and how much it is feared.

    If Axemen rely on selling stories, he said, the most important one is for their own community: “That [they] have all the power and authority and the propensity for violence that [they] have back home, here in Canada.”

    #Canada #scam #Nigeria #Black_Axe

  • An Assessment of Black Axe Confraternity Cult in Nigeria: Its Impact on the University Educational System - January 2017
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318773709_An_Assessment_of_Black_Axe_Confraternity_Cult_in_Nigeria_Its

    PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aminu_Surajo2/publication/318773709_An_Assessment_of_Black_Axe_Confraternity_Cult_in_Nigeria_Its_Impact_on_the_University_Educational_System/links/597d8971458515687b485967/An-Assessment-of-Black-Axe-Confraternity-Cult-in-Nigeria-Its-Impact-on

    The thesis focuses attention on the activities of Black Axe Confraternity cult in major Nigerian university campuses. The cult group brings about lack of peace and stability in the campus as a result of incessant violence with the rival cult groups. The activities of Black Axe Confraternity cult started at the University of Benin and spread to various universities. The Black Axe cult members also involved in armed robbery, drug trafficking, kidnapping, election rigging and other political malpractice. Every year newly recruited members were initiated into the cult group and they swear with the oath of secrecy. From that day, they give their allegiance to their leaders. The impacts of Black Axe Confraternity cult includes interruption of the academic calendar, lack of peace of minds, insecurity and uncertainty among students, death and injury of many members including the innocent students, destruction of the university properties, the involvement of election violence and civil disobedience. The solutions to the problems of Black Axe Confraternity cult group in Nigerian university campuses comprises of public enlightenment campaign on the negative effect of cultism, moral reorientation, discouraging politicians from assisting the cult member financially, admission based on merit and expulsion of students involved in campus cult violence. The parents, society, government and the religious organisations have the greater role to play in bringing an end to the problem which affects the university educational system in Nigerian.

    #université #Nigeria #Black_Axe