A two-year BBC investigation into the Black Ax - a Nigerian student society that has evolved into a feared mafia - has revealed new evidence of its infiltration into politics and involvement in murder and fraud including the whole world.
Warning: This article contains violent narratives
In moments of silence, after the day's lectures are over, Dr. John Stone is haunted by flashbacks. It is not the sight of blood and the sound of gunfire that haunts him, but the supplication: the way people beg God for mercy before they die.
"It's very painful," he says, shaking his head. "The families of the dead curse you. You will be cursed as long as you live." .
Dr. Stone Political Science at the University of Benin, Southern Nigeria. But for several decades he was a high-profile member of the Black Ax - a Nigerian mafia-style gang involved in people smuggling, online fraud and murder. The Black Ax is referred to locally in Nigeria as a "sect", due to its secret joining rituals and the exceptional loyalty of its members. The group also gained notoriety for its use of extreme violence. Pictures of those standing up to it, of mutilated bodies or signs of torture, are regularly posted on Nigerian social media.
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Dr. Stone Pal's atrocities in his years with axes. During our interview, he shaped his hand into the shape of a gun and stuck it in the forehead of our product. was dr. Stone is known in Benin as a "butcher".
The violence that characterized those years marred his life. Stone, and today he feels remorse for what he did and has become a harsh critic of the gang he served in the past. He is one of 12 members of the Black Ax sect who decided to break their oath of allegiance to the group and reveal their secrets to the BBC in their first contact with the international media.
During our investigation into the issue of Black Ax, thousands of secret documents that were leaked from the gang's private communications were revealed. This evidence indicates that the Black Ax has become, in the last decade, one of the most dangerous and widespread organized crime gangs in the world. There are "men-axes" who live among us in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America. You may find an email they sent in your mailbox. .
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Our investigation began with a death threat contained in a handwritten letter sent to a BBC journalist in 2018 by a man on a motorbike who taped it to the windshield of the journalist's car. Weeks earlier, this journalist had investigated the illegal opiate trade in Nigeria and, in the course of his investigations, had come face to face with a number of Black Ax members. A second, similar letter was later delivered to the journalist's family. Someone was following him and found his home address.
Was the black ax the source of the threat? How powerful is this criminal network, and who is behind it?
The search for answers to these questions brought us to a man who claimed to have hacked and hacked tens of thousands of classified Black Ax documents from hundreds of its members. The documents, dating from 2009 to 2019, include correspondence related to murders and drug trafficking. The emails detail elaborate and highly profitable online scams. Some messages also touch on the group's global expansion. These documents were a mosaic of criminal Black Ax activities spanning four continents. .
The source of the hack claims that Black Ax wants to kill him. Therefore, he refused to reveal his real name, and used the name "Oshea Tobias" instead.
One of the threatening messages he received on the Internet stated the following: "You are being hunted. The ax will pierce your skull... I will lick your blood and chew your eyes."
The BBC spent several months analyzing documents obtained by Tobias. We were able to verify key pieces of information regarding the identities of the named persons and a number of the crimes mentioned in the documents. Much of what was contained in the leaked documents was too horrific to be published. The Ax Men used secret forums and passwordless websites to share pictures of the murders. In one of the interventions titled "Strike", a picture of a man lying on the ground appeared with four severe wounds on his head. His shirt was stained with blood, and on his back were red shoe marks.
The Black Ax is engaged in a struggle for supremacy and dominance with several rival "sects" within Nigeria - criminal gangs with names like "eyes", "pirates" and "mafios". Written in the pidgin English used in West Africa, it shows how ax men document their murders of rival gangs and record the number of these murders, like the scores of football matches.
In one of the correspondences, the score is now 15-2, the war in Benin, while another message states, "A strike in Anambra State. The score is 4 Axes Men and 2 Pirates."
But the gang's main source of income is fraud, not murder. The documents seen by the BBC include invoices, bank transfers and thousands of emails that show Black Ax members cooperating with each other in online scams around the world. Gang members share examples of how these scams are carried out.
Options include romantic, inheritance, property and business scams in which criminals open mail accounts that appear to belong to victims' lawyers or accountants in order to intercept and seize payments. .
These scams are not limited in scope by one person using a laptop, but are organized, collaborative and highly profitable operations involving dozens of actors working in coordination across several continents.
The BBC discovered among the leaked messages the case of a man in the US state of California who was targeted in 2010 by a network of suspected ax men from Nigeria and Italy. The man said he lost $3 million in the scam.
" In a message sent by the victim to one of the fraudsters, the moment he discovered that his money had disappeared, "The bank I deal with does not seem to exist???" The answer: "Can I be more clear?? It looks like the Swiss bank is fraudulent."
The emails show that the Black Ax are using names from stolen or forged passports in their scams. They refer to their victims as "mogo" or "mayi" - Nigerian slang for "fools".
It is very likely that the Black Ax cybercrime network is generating billions of dollars in profits for the gang members. In 2017, Canadian authorities announced that they had dismantled a money laundering scheme belonging to the gang worth more than $5 billion. No one knows how many similar schemes overseen by Black Ax are still active today. The leaked documents show the contacts made by the gang members between Nigeria, Britain, Malaysia, the Gulf states and 12 other countries.
The source of the leaks told us that it is "widespread all over the world". He says he works as an investigator in fraud and forgery cases and began tracking down Black Ax after identifying a number of its victims.
"I estimate that the gang has more than 30,000 members," he says.
There is no doubt that Black Ax's global expansion has been carried out according to a very carefully crafted plan. Correspondence shows that the men of the axes divided the geographic regions into "sections" and appointed local chiefs for each. These chiefs of departments collect fees from the workers in the areas under their command - much like a subscription fee - before sending them to the gang leaders in their stronghold in the Nigerian city of Benin.
"It's all over the world," Tobias, the source of the leaks, told us. He says he works as a fraud investigator and began tracking down Black Ax after identifying a number of its victims.
"I estimate the gang has more than 30,000 members," he says.
The United States is taking a more assertive approach in dealing with the black ax. The FBI launched operations targeting the gang in November 2019 and September 2021, resulting in 35 of its members being charged with multi-million dollar wire fraud offenses. Between September and December of this year, the US Secret Intelligence Service, in cooperation with the international police Interpol, launched an operation on an international scale in order to arrest 9 other Black Ax members in South Africa.
"Cybercrime is a multi-trillion dollar industry, and it's out of control," said Scott Augenbaum, a former FBI employee and cybersecurity expert.
He says he has dealt with hundreds of black ax victims in the 30 years he worked in the FBI's Cybercrime Division, during which he investigated fraud and forgery cases similar to those revealed in the leaked documents.
He said, "I saw lives being destroyed, companies declaring bankruptcy, and the loss of everything that people had saved throughout their lives. These crimes affect everyone."
Despite its international reach, the roots of the Black Ax Gang are firmly rooted in Nigeria. The gang was founded 40 years ago in the city of Benin in Nigeria's Edo state.
Most of the ax men hail from this region, and this affiliation may have played a role in the gang's global expansion. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 70 percent of Nigerians who migrate abroad come from Edo State. Reports say that the Black Ax plays a pivotal role in smuggling illegal immigrants, as it transports them from its bases in the city of Benin to northern Africa and southern Italy.
Male university graduates between the ages of 16 and 23 are the most important target group for the gang's recruits. The secret black ax rite of baptism (known as "baming") is known for its exceptional brutality.
In an intervention published by a gang member in a secret forum in 2016, he described what he went through, "I did not know that I would be subjected to Bammang that day." He says he was taken from his college thinking he was going to a private party. He explains how he was taken to a forest where several men were waiting for him. They stripped him naked and forced him to lie on his stomach in the mud. Then, one by one, they beat him with bamboo sticks until he almost lost consciousness. One of them shouted that he was going to rape his girlfriend, and when he was done, he would go back to the ball.
In his intervention, he says, "I thought that would be the day of my doom."
But the beating eventually stopped, and a series of rituals followed, including crawling between the legs of his tormentors - a tradition called "the devil's path" - then drinking blood from a wound in his thumb and chewing a kola nut - a nut that contains caffeine and is widespread in West Africa . Then, amidst singing and chanting, the same men who had just finished torturing him embraced him. He was born again with a new title they call the "obedient man of axes".
There are many reasons why young men join the Black Axe Gang. Some of those who enlist are forced to do so, while others join voluntarily.
In Makoko, a large slum built on sticks stuck in Lagos Bay, we spoke to a group of ax men, some of whom said they were recruited against their noses. Despite this, they expressed an unwavering loyalty to the gang, reinforced by the spiritual bonds created by the aforementioned rituals of belonging.
The leader of the group, sitting in a small wooden building surrounded by a group of ax-men, said, "We worship God Kurufu, the invisible god, and he has always been our guide."
He said he was "proud of his affiliation with the Black Ax despite his insistence that he was forcibly recruited by a police officer. Another member claimed that he belonged to the gang after members of his rival's gang killed his father.
But whatever the reasons and how gang members belong, many of them claim that membership has benefits.
In another interview we had in Lagos in April 2021, when we asked him why he joined Black Ax, one of the members bragged to us, “Secretity, discipline and brotherhood.” This claimed that he earned more money through the gang's criminal activities than he would have earned if he had worked as a bank employee.
Says dr. Stone said many ax men join the gang just for the sake of these networking. Nigeria has the second highest unemployment rate in the world, and in the midst of this harsh environment, Stone says that joining the black ax may guarantee protection for the individual and open up opportunities for him to enter the commercial field. He says that not all gang members are criminals.
He goes on to say, "Among the members there are members of the army, navy, air force, academics and even priests and clergy."
This synergy and mutual support were key to the founding of Black Ax. The group grew out of a student association called the New African Black Movement. This association was founded at the University of Benin in the seventies of the last century, and its slogan was a black ax that breaks chains. Its founders said that its aim is to fight injustice and oppression.
The struggle against apartheid in South Africa was a source of inspiration for the new black African movement, but its structure, secrecy, and fraternal solidarity that it adopted are all imitations of other organizations, especially Freemasonry, which had a presence in Nigeria during the British colonial era.
The New Black African Movement still exists today and is a company legally registered with the Nigerian Trade Commission. It says that it has 3 million members around the world, and it periodically announces the charitable activities in which it contributes, including fundraising for orphanages, schools and the police in Nigeria and abroad. The movement holds annual conferences, some of which were attended by prominent figures from the worlds of politics and art.
Leaders of the New Black African Movement say the Black Ax is a rogue group, distance themselves from it publicly and insist that their movement opposes all criminal activity.
The New Black African Movement is not the black ax. The movement has nothing to do with crime. The New Black African Movement is an organization that seeks to promote greatness,” Ulurugon Ise Kakor, the current leader of the movement, told the BBC in July 2021. Around the world."
The New Black African Movement's lawyers assured us that any member who appears to belong to the Black Ax will be expelled immediately and that the movement never tolerates crime.
However, the international judicial authorities have a different opinion. The US Department of Justice, in prosecuting members of the Black Ax gang since 2018, said that the New Black African Movement is a "criminal organization" and is "part of the Black Ax". Similar views were expressed by the Canadian authorities, who said that the new black African movement and the black ax are two sides of the same coin.
The documents seen by the BBC also confirm the existence of links between some members of the Black Ax and the New Black African Movement.
Many of the documents were obtained from the email account of Augustus Bemigo-Oyebo, who led the New Black African Movement between 2012 and 2016. These documents show that Bimigo, a successful investor and hotel owner in Nigeria, is involved in massive online fraud. The BBC has verified two major cases involving Bimigo, which involved fraud and fraud to steal the heritage of British and American citizens. Victims of these scams told us they lost more than $3.3 million.
"We removed nearly a million dollars from him." This is what was stated in a letter referring to one of the victims sent to Bimigo by one of his accomplices. The letter contains the victim's full name, email address and phone number, with instructions on how to proceed with the scam.
According to the documents, Bimigo sent scam plans to a network of collaborators on at least 50 occasions. In one of his letters discussing the issue of expanding the new black African movement, it was stated that he asked members of the movement to establish non-governmental organizations around the world in order to "draw out millions."
In his correspondence, Bemigo addressed members of the New Black African Movement as "obedient men of axes". In one reply, sent to Bimigo via Facebook's messaging app, the sender addressed him as the "patriotic sheikh of Black Axe."
Bemigo's sister-in-law was indicted by British authorities for money laundering worth £1 million in 2019. In a widely reported press release, the UK Crown Prosecution Office referred to Bemigo as the "black-axe boss" at the time.
When the BBC showed this evidence to the leaders of the new black African movement, they said they would investigate and that anyone found to be in breach of the movement's code of conduct would be expelled. Contacted by the BBC, Bemigo did not respond to the allegations.
Stone claims that Black Ax and the New Black African Movement are in fact one organization. Dr. speaks. Stone about experience and experience. Not only was he a member of Black Ax, but he was also a high-ranking official of the New Black African Movement in Black Ax's stronghold, Benin City.
" He says, "It's the same organization, but it has become a formality to separate them for the sake of anonymity. It's a two-sided coin."
According to Tobias, the New Black African Movement played a prominent role in the covert spread of Black Ax around the world,” adding, “The New Black African Movement as an organization is a charade, it is only a front, it is the public face of Black Ax.”
He claims that the "ultimate goal" of the new black African movement is to "undermine and corrupt public opinion" in order to hide "the truth, which is that it is a mafia gang."
It is noteworthy that many organizations operating under the name of the New Black African Movement are registered in various countries, including Britain and Canada. There are at least 50 accounts on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram with names close to the name of the movement, in addition to its official social media channels. Some of these accounts have more than a hundred thousand followers. Other sites include explicit references to the black ax as caricatures and images of people wielding axes and guns and sometimes even contain the gang's signature chant of "obedient ax men".
The New Black African Movement has established itself as a global brand in many countries. As for Nigeria itself, says Dr. Stone said her influence extends into the political sphere.
He said, "Many members of the gang are MPs in parliament, and even in the government. This is the reality of the black ax. This is what the black ax calls for: the acquisition of any position or position possible."
A former leader of the New Black African Movement, Augustus Bemigo, described in British judicial files as the former leader of the Black Axe, ran for the Nigerian House of Representatives in 2019 on the list of the Progressive Congress (APC) party.
Activist Curtis Ogbibor says that political life in Edo state is crowded with black axes. "Politics in Nigeria is like the mafia. Our politicians and our government at all levels encourage our youth to belong to sects and gangs," he says.
It is alleged that aspiring Nigerian politicians hire black ax members to intimidate their rivals, guard ballot boxes and force people to vote. Once these politicians win positions in the state, they reward the axes by giving them jobs in the government.
"They arm them and lavish money on them during the elections, promising them appointments and political positions," he says.
Two documents, apparently leaked from the internal communications of the New Black African Movement, suggest that a sum of 35 million naira (more than £64,000) was transferred to the movement in Benin to "protect votes" and secure support in the gubernatorial elections. The state in 2012. In response to this attribution, it was stated in the files that “80 job positions were allocated to the new black African movement, the Benin branch, for immediate appointment in the state government. It is said that these funds were distributed directly by the head of the state office at the time, Sam Eredia, who later died.
During meetings with senior leaders of the New Black African Movement in Lagos, their lawyer confirmed that a number of politicians are members of the movement, citing the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Chaibu as an example.
There are many people in our organization, and there is no need to hide it," said Aliu Hope, one of the lawyers for the New Black African Movement.
But a former member of the Edo State government, speaking to the international media for the first time, volunteered to reveal the secrets of the Edo State government's cooperation with organized crime gangs.
Tony Kabaka, a member of the New Black African Movement, spent several years until 2019 serving the state government in Benin. During that time, through his company, Akogbe Ventures, he hired more than 7,000 tax collectors, bringing billions back to the state.
Since leaving political life, Kabaka has been subjected to several assassination attempts, and his empty house full of bullet holes is a testament to that.
And he says, "If you sit me down and ask can you identify the presence of the black ax in the government? I would say yes. Most politicians are involved."
Kabaka claims he was asked to mobilize gang groups in order to help win the elections. But he denies that he was personally involved in any violence.
He said, "If the government wants to get re-elected, it will need these people. These gangs still exist because the government is involved and that is the truth."
We traveled to Benin City in July 2021 to interview Deputy Governor Philippe Chaibu, but he failed to show up on time twice. When we sent our allegations to the Edo State government and to Chaibu personally, we did not receive any response.
Dr. Stone that the Nigerian security authorities and politicians are too entwined with the black ax to combat it effectively. He says the solution to the problem of violence lies within the gang itself. Dr.. Stone isn't the only former member who feels the gang has become a major threat.
In an intervention written by a member of a secret platform that was leaked to the BBC, he said, "The reason that prompted some of us to join the new black African movement is to fight injustice and oppression. But now, we are being branded as criminals with evidence of that."
Black Ax's internal communications are filled with similar complaints from its members. Another entry stated the following: "I did not become a man of axes in order to take souls. I became a man of axes in an attempt to fraternise. Please, stop killing."
The leadership of the new black African movement says it is committed to ensuring that the movement continues to follow the principles on which it was founded and to promote peace. The current leader of the movement, Ulurugon Ise Kakor, told the BBC that he was elected in order to cleanse the movement of criminals who infiltrated it and that these are causing great harm to the movement.
In an attempt to capitalize on this rush for change, Dr. Stone is what he calls the "Rainbow Coalition" - a group of ex-gangsters, powerful Nigerians, and professors. The members of this coalition try to defuse the tension when gangs clash with each other and also try to steer the black ax towards a more peaceful and less violent future.
He says, "The contribution the coalition makes to society is represented in reducing crime, lowering the murder rate among young people, and reducing the number of widows and orphans."
For his part, Coalition co-founder Chukwuka Omesa wants the Black Axes to reconsider the community they want to create.
He says, "Everyone has a conscience. You may deny it in front of cameras and in public, but you can't deny it when you're alone. It will haunt you."
Dr. Stone knows that trying to push the Black Ax toward reform is a risky undertaking. He also knows that his old comrades may come to kill him one day. But he is ready for them if they do. Festoon keeps a three-foot sword in his car and a licensed gun in his condo.
"It's for personal safety," he says with a smile. "If they come to kill me, don't I have the right to do the same to them?"
The investigation was conducted by Charlie Northcott, Sam Judah and Peter McGup.
