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The Ultra-Violent Cult That Became a Global Mafia · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture this. You're a journalist, right? You've spent weeks like
0:04
Speaker 1: deep in the trenches digging into the illegal opioid trade
0:07
Speaker 1: in Nigeria.
0:09
Speaker 2: Oh, man, that is already a super dangerous situation.
0:12
Speaker 1: Exactly. You're meeting face to face with some truly dangerous
0:16
Speaker 1: people operating completely under the radar. And you finally get
0:20
Speaker 1: a moment to breathe. The adrenaline starts to fade. You
0:24
Speaker 1: walk back to your car.
0:26
Speaker 2: Right.
0:27
Speaker 1: And there it is. just slipped under the windshield wiper.
0:30
Speaker 2: Uh-oh.
0:31
Speaker 1: A spidery handwritten letter. It was dropped by a passing
0:35
Speaker 1: motorbike rider. You open it up, and it is a
0:38
Speaker 1: point-blank death threat.
0:40
Speaker 2: That is terrifying.
0:42
Speaker 1: And just in case you thought it was like a
0:44
Speaker 1: random scare tactic, weeks later, a second letter gets handed
0:48
Speaker 1: directly to your family.
0:50
Speaker 2: Wow. Wait, to their family? Yes.
0:54
Speaker 1: They've been tracking you. They know your routines. They know
0:56
Speaker 1: exactly where you live. And they want you to know
1:00
Speaker 1: that they know.
1:01
Speaker 2: That is, I mean, it's the kind of chilling, highly
1:05
Speaker 2: personal intimidation tactic that just completely shatters any illusion of safety.
1:10
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
1:11
Speaker 2: You realize immediately that you are dealing with an organization
1:14
Speaker 2: that doesn't just operate in the shadows, but one that
1:17
Speaker 2: feels entirely comfortable reaching right into your domestic life to
1:21
Speaker 2: send a very clear message like we can touch you
1:23
Speaker 2: whenever we want. Yeah.
1:25
Speaker 1: And that terrifying moment, that was the actual starting point
1:28
Speaker 1: for a massive two-year investigation into a group known as
1:32
Speaker 1: Black Axe.
1:32
Speaker 2: Such a wild story.
1:34
Speaker 1: It really is. So the mission of our deep dive
1:36
Speaker 1: today is to take you through the staggering breadth of
1:38
Speaker 1: that investigation. We are going to trace how a Nigerian
1:41
Speaker 1: student fraternity from the 1970s basically mutated into a ruthless,
1:46
Speaker 1: multibillion-dollar global mafia.
1:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, the evolution is just mind-blowing.
1:51
Speaker 1: We're going to unpack how a university club evolved into
1:54
Speaker 1: an international syndicate that now spans four continents. And honestly,
1:57
Speaker 1: most importantly, we are going to explain why you, you know,
2:00
Speaker 1: the person listening to this right now, why you need
2:03
Speaker 1: to understand the incredibly dark reality hiding behind those seemingly
2:07
Speaker 1: innocuous spam emails sitting in your inbox.
2:10
Speaker 2: Right, because to map out an organization of the scale,
2:12
Speaker 2: we are drawing on a truly unprecedented cache of source material.
2:16
Speaker 1: Unprecedented is the right word.
2:17
Speaker 2: I mean, we have access to leaked internal communications. and
2:21
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of hacked documents spanning an entire decade
2:24
Speaker 2: from 2009 to 2019. That is a massive data dump.
2:28
Speaker 1: It is.
2:29
Speaker 2: And these aren't just rumors or hearsay. We are looking
2:31
Speaker 2: at literal receipts, bank transfers, internal rules, and even casual
2:36
Speaker 2: communication about murders.
2:38
Speaker 1: Which is just chilling to read.
2:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. We'll also be relying on firsthand accounts from whistleblowers
2:43
Speaker 2: who risked literally everything to speak out. Victims who lost
2:47
Speaker 2: their life savings, and international law enforcement agencies who are
2:51
Speaker 2: desperately trying to map the scale of an operation that
2:53
Speaker 2: seems to be constantly three steps ahead.
2:56
Speaker 1: And while all of this might sound like, I don't know,
2:58
Speaker 1: the plot of a slick Hollywood thriller or something, I
3:01
Speaker 1: need to remind you that this organization operates in the
3:03
Speaker 1: very real, very mundane digital spaces that you navigate every
3:07
Speaker 1: single day.
3:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
3:09
Speaker 1: We're talking about the internet you use, the email accounts
3:11
Speaker 1: you check, the social media platforms you scroll through. You
3:15
Speaker 1: might literally have a message from a Black Axe operative
3:18
Speaker 1: sitting in your spam folder right this second, just trying
3:21
Speaker 1: to initiate contact.
3:22
Speaker 2: It's a crazy thought. It is.
3:24
Speaker 1: So, okay, let's unpack this.
3:26
Speaker 2: Well, I think the best place to ground this massive
3:29
Speaker 2: global story is by looking at the human face of
3:31
Speaker 2: the organization, right? Both its past and its present.
3:34
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.
3:35
Speaker 2: And that brings us to Dr. John Stone. Right.
3:38
Speaker 1: Dr. Stone.
3:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. So today, Dr. Stone is a political science professor.
3:42
Speaker 2: He teaches at the University of Benin in southern Nigeria.
3:45
Speaker 1: Sounds like a pretty normal, respectable guy.
3:47
Speaker 2: Exactly. By day, he stands in a quiet lecture hall
3:50
Speaker 2: grading papers, teaching students about governance. But for decades, he
3:55
Speaker 2: was a senior member of Black Axe. And within the
3:58
Speaker 2: ranks of this gang, he wasn't just like a low-level member.
4:02
Speaker 2: He was known locally as a butcher.
4:05
Speaker 1: A butcher. I mean, just sit with that word for
4:07
Speaker 1: a second. That is not someone who is just, you know,
4:10
Speaker 1: cooking the books or running a money laundering spreadsheet in
4:13
Speaker 1: some back office. Not at all. This was a frontline enforcer.
4:17
Speaker 1: a man who openly admits he took part in absolute
4:20
Speaker 1: atrocities during his time as an axeman.
4:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, the details of his interviews are intense.
4:26
Speaker 1: Really intense.
4:27
Speaker 2: During one conversation, he started talking about the most efficient
4:31
Speaker 2: ways to kill a human being. And at one point,
4:34
Speaker 2: he physically leaned forward, squeezed his fingers into the shape
4:37
Speaker 2: of a gun, and pushed them directly against the forehead
4:40
Speaker 2: of the producer just to make his point.
4:42
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
4:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:45
Speaker 1: It's this level of visceral, internalized violence that doesn't just
4:49
Speaker 1: wash off when you put on a tweed jacket, you know?
4:52
Speaker 2: Right. And what's fascinating here is the profound psychological toll
4:55
Speaker 2: this level of violence takes on a person, even the
4:58
Speaker 2: perpetrators who seemingly wielded it without hesitation.
5:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it leaves a mark.
5:02
Speaker 2: It really does. So Dr. Stone has left the gang.
5:05
Speaker 2: He's now a vocal critic, actually one of a dozen
5:08
Speaker 2: sources who broke their blood oaths of silence to speak
5:10
Speaker 2: to international media.
5:12
Speaker 1: Which is incredibly dangerous. Extremely.
5:15
Speaker 2: But the past never really leaves him. He talks about
5:18
Speaker 2: having constant flashbacks. But the flashbacks aren't about the sight
5:23
Speaker 2: of blood or the deafening sound of gunshots or even
5:25
Speaker 2: the chaos of a street fight.
5:27
Speaker 1: It's the begging.
5:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
5:29
Speaker 1: That's what he said haunts him the most. When he
5:31
Speaker 1: finishes lecturing for the day and the quiet moments set in,
5:34
Speaker 1: he hears the victims begging for mercy right before they died.
5:37
Speaker 1: Begging him. Begging God.
5:39
Speaker 2: It's just so heavy.
5:41
Speaker 1: He literally told reporters, quote, It's so painful. The families
5:45
Speaker 1: of the dead They will curse you. A curse will
5:48
Speaker 1: be upon your life. He physically shudders when he talks
5:51
Speaker 1: about it. The semantic response is still right there decades later.
5:55
Speaker 2: And that highlights a critical aspect of this organization's architecture,
5:59
Speaker 2: because Black Axe is locally referred to as a cult.
6:02
Speaker 1: Right. But we should clarify what that means in this context.
6:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. We aren't talking about a religious cult in the
6:07
Speaker 2: traditional sense, like worshiping a deity for spiritual salvation or something.
6:12
Speaker 2: We are talking about a secret society defined by intense
6:15
Speaker 2: fanatical loyalty and these brutal initiation rituals. And the cornerstone
6:20
Speaker 2: of this cult's reputation in Nigeria is extreme unapologetic violence.
6:25
Speaker 2: It's not hidden.
6:26
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
6:27
Speaker 2: Images of people who cross black acts, mutilated bodies, people
6:31
Speaker 2: showing obvious signs of torture. These are regularly posted and
6:35
Speaker 2: circulated on Nigerian social media. It is a public branding
6:39
Speaker 2: of terror designed to signal dominance.
6:42
Speaker 1: Okay, wait. If the trauma is so severe that it
6:46
Speaker 1: leaves even a former enforcer permanently haunted, right, and the
6:50
Speaker 1: violence is so brutally public that everyone sees these mutilated
6:54
Speaker 1: bodies on their Facebook or WhatsApp feeds, why on earth
6:58
Speaker 1: does anyone join?
6:59
Speaker 2: It's a great question.
7:00
Speaker 1: Like, if you are a 19-year-old kid and you know
7:02
Speaker 1: this is a world of torture, psychological scarring, and literal curses,
7:07
Speaker 1: what is the draw? Nobody just signs up to be haunted.
7:11
Speaker 2: Well, that is the pivotal question of this entire investigation.
7:14
Speaker 2: To understand the why, you have to look at the
7:16
Speaker 2: internal culture they've built. It completely flips the script on
7:20
Speaker 2: how society views violence.
7:21
Speaker 1: How so?
7:22
Speaker 2: We gained incredible insight into this through the hacked documents
7:26
Speaker 2: provided by a whistleblower. This guy goes by the pseudonym
7:29
Speaker 2: Uche Tobias.
7:30
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah. Uche Tobias.
7:32
Speaker 2: Right, so Tobias gave investigators access to the secret password-protected
7:36
Speaker 2: forums used by Axemen. And in these forums, the violence
7:40
Speaker 2: isn't a source of shame or some dark secret. It
7:42
Speaker 2: is the primary currency of status. Yeah.
7:45
Speaker 1: Those forums are utterly chilling to read through.
7:47
Speaker 2: They really are.
7:48
Speaker 1: They have these internal chat groups where they just casually
7:51
Speaker 1: share photos of recent murders, like it's treated like a
7:53
Speaker 1: corporate newsletter.
7:55
Speaker 2: It's so normalized for them.
7:56
Speaker 1: Exactly. In one of the posts labeled Hit, there's this
8:00
Speaker 1: photo of a man lying splayed out on the floor
8:02
Speaker 1: of a small room. He's wearing a white t-shirt, but
8:05
Speaker 1: it is completely soaked in a pool of his own blood.
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Speaker 2: Oh. That's horrific.
8:09
Speaker 1: He has four deep gashes on his head, and there
8:12
Speaker 1: is a bloody boot print stamped right in the middle
8:14
Speaker 1: of his back. And they post this for each other
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Speaker 1: to see. They are literally documenting their atrocities for peer review.
8:23
Speaker 2: And it is highly gamified. Within Nigeria, Black Axe is
8:26
Speaker 2: fighting this constant, brutal war for supremacy against rival cults.
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Speaker 2: Groups with names like the IEA, the Buccaneers, the Pirates,
8:34
Speaker 2: and the Moffites. Right. In these translated messages, which are
8:38
Speaker 2: originally written in West African Pidgin, you see Black Axe
8:41
Speaker 2: members keeping track of their murders exactly like they are
8:44
Speaker 2: reporting a football score on a weekend broadcast.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. One message literally says, quote, score is presently 15-2.
8:51
Speaker 1: The war is Benin.
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Speaker 2: It completely strips the humanity from the act.
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Speaker 1: Another one reads, hit in Anambra State. score is IA,
9:01
Speaker 1: which is what Axemen call themselves. IA 4 and Buccaneers 2.
9:05
Speaker 1: They are tallying up human lives on a scoreboard.
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Speaker 2: It's just evil.
9:11
Speaker 1: So to understand why young men would willingly step into
9:14
Speaker 1: an arena where they are either scoring points through murder
9:17
Speaker 1: or becoming a point on a rival's scoreboard, we have
9:20
Speaker 1: to look at how their psychology is systematically dismantled from
9:24
Speaker 1: day one.
9:25
Speaker 2: Exactly. We have to look at how they are initiated. Right.
9:29
Speaker 1: And the massive socioeconomic void that this cult is stepping
9:33
Speaker 1: in to fill.
9:34
Speaker 2: So the recruitment strategy of Black Axe is highly targeted.
9:38
Speaker 2: They primarily look for male university undergraduates, typically between the
9:43
Speaker 2: ages of 16 and 23.
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Speaker 1: Really young guys.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, very young. And this is happening mostly in their
9:48
Speaker 2: geographical heartland, which is Edo State, and specifically its capital,
9:52
Speaker 2: Benin City. But stepping into this brotherhood is not a
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Speaker 2: simple handshake or, you know, paying a membership fee.
10:00
Speaker 1: Far from it.
10:01
Speaker 2: The initiation process, which they call BAMing, is a calculated
10:06
Speaker 2: exercise in psychological and physical destruction.
10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let me walk you through just one specific account
10:12
Speaker 1: of BAMing that was actually posted by a member on
10:15
Speaker 1: the leaked forums in 2016.
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Speaker 2: Go for it.
10:18
Speaker 1: So this guy, Didn't even know he was going to
10:20
Speaker 1: be initiated that day. He thought he was just being
10:22
Speaker 1: led away from campus to attend this exclusive party.
10:25
Speaker 2: Oh, wow. So he's just looking for a social event.
10:28
Speaker 1: Exactly. Instead, he's lured into a dense forest where a
10:31
Speaker 1: group of men are waiting in the dark. And they
10:33
Speaker 1: immediately swarm him and strip him naked. They force him
10:38
Speaker 1: to lie face down in the mud. Then they take
10:41
Speaker 1: turns whipping his bare skin with bamboo sticks, beating him
10:44
Speaker 1: so severely he's pushed to the absolute edge of unconsciousness.
10:48
Speaker 2: And, you know, the physical pain is really only the
10:52
Speaker 2: mechanism to access his psychology. Right. Because as they are
10:55
Speaker 2: beating him, they scream threats at him, telling him they
10:58
Speaker 2: are going to find and rape his girlfriend. And then
11:00
Speaker 2: when they are done, he will be forced to rape.
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Speaker 1: Her, too. That is just beyond twisted.
11:05
Speaker 2: They are establishing absolute power over every single aspect of
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Speaker 2: his life. The initiate wrote in his account, that was
11:13
Speaker 2: going to be the day I die. He genuinely believed
11:16
Speaker 2: his life was over.
11:17
Speaker 1: But eventually the physical agony stops and the rituals actually begin.
11:22
Speaker 1: He has to crawl through the legs of the very
11:23
Speaker 1: men who just tortured him. It's a process they call
11:26
Speaker 1: the devil's passage.
11:27
Speaker 2: An act of total submission.
11:29
Speaker 1: Exactly. Then they cut his thumb and make him drink
11:33
Speaker 1: his own blood. He's forced to chew a native West
11:36
Speaker 1: African kola nut. And all of this is done to
11:39
Speaker 1: the sound of echoing chants and songs, worshiping a figure
11:42
Speaker 1: they call Korofo, the unseen god.
11:45
Speaker 2: It's so deeply theatrical, but terrifying.
11:49
Speaker 1: And then comes the psychological twist that completely locks the trap.
11:53
Speaker 1: The exact same men who just brutalized him suddenly embrace him.
11:58
Speaker 1: They lift him up. He is officially reborn as an
12:01
Speaker 1: IA Axeman.
12:03
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the broader science of human psychology,
12:06
Speaker 2: this is a textbook example of extreme trauma bonding. Right.
12:10
Speaker 1: Can you explain the mechanics of that?
12:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the process is systematically designed to break down
12:16
Speaker 2: the individual's prior sense of self. When you subject a
12:19
Speaker 2: human brain to that level of sheer terror, the amygdala
12:22
Speaker 2: just floods the system with cortisol.
12:25
Speaker 1: Pure survival mode.
12:26
Speaker 2: Exactly. By stripping him, beating him, and terrifying him with
12:30
Speaker 2: threats against his loved ones, they destroy his old identity
12:34
Speaker 2: and his sense of autonomy. Then, the sudden embrace floods
12:38
Speaker 2: the brain with oxytocin and dopamine.
12:41
Speaker 1: So it rewires them.
12:43
Speaker 2: They offer him a new identity, anchored entirely in the brotherhood.
12:47
Speaker 2: The shared blood, the rituals, the sudden relief from terror,
12:51
Speaker 2: it creates a fanatical, unbreakable loyalty. The organization literally becomes
12:56
Speaker 2: his sole source of protection.
12:58
Speaker 1: It sounds like the most extreme accounts of military hazing,
13:01
Speaker 1: or like special forces selection, where they push recruits to
13:05
Speaker 1: their absolute physical and mental breaking points to forge a
13:07
Speaker 1: unit that operates as one mind.
13:10
Speaker 2: It's a very similar psychological mechanism.
13:13
Speaker 1: Except in a military context, the ultimate goal is national defense.
13:17
Speaker 1: They are breaking you down to build you back up
13:19
Speaker 1: as a soldier for a state.
13:21
Speaker 2: Right.
13:21
Speaker 1: Here, it's an initiation into an illicit fraternity where the
13:25
Speaker 1: quote-unquote networking involves raw street-level survival.
13:29
Speaker 2: And that concept of survival is the critical context here.
13:32
Speaker 2: We really cannot understand the allure of Black Axe without
13:35
Speaker 2: looking at the environment where this is happening.
13:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, the macro picture.
13:39
Speaker 2: Nigeria currently has the second highest unemployment rate in the world. Wow.
13:42
Speaker 2: When you are a young man facing a future where
13:44
Speaker 2: legitimate opportunities are incredibly scarce, where the state apparatus might
13:48
Speaker 2: be failing to provide basic security or economic mobility, your
13:53
Speaker 2: calculus for survival completely changes.
13:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reporters actually went into Makoko, which is this vast,
13:58
Speaker 1: sprawling slum built on wooden stilts above the Lagos Lagoon.
14:02
Speaker 1: And they interviewed young axemen living there.
14:05
Speaker 2: What did they say?
14:05
Speaker 1: Well, some claim they were literally forced to join. like
14:09
Speaker 1: recruited at gunpoint by a police officer who was secretly
14:12
Speaker 1: a member.
14:13
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
14:14
Speaker 1: Another guy joined because his father was murdered by a
14:16
Speaker 1: rival gang, and he needed immediate physical protection that the
14:20
Speaker 1: police just couldn't provide.
14:21
Speaker 2: Makes sense, tragically.
14:23
Speaker 1: But regardless of how they got in, they all cited
14:26
Speaker 1: the tangible benefits. One member, sitting in a wooden shack
14:29
Speaker 1: surrounded by his entourage, proudly stated that the cult provides secrecy, discipline,
14:35
Speaker 1: and brotherhood.
14:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another activist based in Benin City, Curtis Agbabor,
14:40
Speaker 2: who actively works to stop youth from joining. And he
14:42
Speaker 2: put it very plainly.
14:43
Speaker 1: What did he say?
14:45
Speaker 2: He said the initiation is ultimately about networking, but it's
14:49
Speaker 2: networking born of desperation. When the state cannot guarantee your safety,
14:54
Speaker 2: when it cannot offer you a path to a career,
14:56
Speaker 2: a group like Black Axe steps in as a shadow state.
14:59
Speaker 1: A shadow state. That's a perfect way to describe it.
15:03
Speaker 2: They collect their own taxes, they provide their own violent
15:06
Speaker 2: dispute resolution, and they promise that nobody will touch you.
15:09
Speaker 2: In a devastated economic environment, this cult effectively offers better,
15:13
Speaker 2: more lucrative career prospects than a legitimate university degree.
15:17
Speaker 1: Wait, okay. Maintaining this level of street muscle, running a
15:21
Speaker 1: shadow state, fighting literal wars with rival gangs over territory,
15:25
Speaker 1: all of that requires massive capital.
15:28
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
15:29
Speaker 1: Where does a street gang in a region with astronomical
15:32
Speaker 1: unemployment get that kind of cash? Because they aren't funding
15:35
Speaker 1: a global empire by shaking down local market vendors in
15:38
Speaker 1: Benin City, right? No, they are not.
15:41
Speaker 2: And this is the pivot that transforms Black Axe from
15:43
Speaker 2: a regional terror into a global menace.
15:46
Speaker 1: There we go.
15:46
Speaker 2: Despite the terrifying reputation for physical violence, the primary engine
15:51
Speaker 2: of revenue for Black Axe is cybercrime.
15:53
Speaker 1: Cybercrime.
15:54
Speaker 2: Yes. And the scale of this digital operation is just... Staggering.
15:59
Speaker 2: The leaked documents reveal an organization that operates in highly
16:02
Speaker 2: structured geographic zones all over the world.
16:05
Speaker 1: Right, like corporate territories.
16:06
Speaker 2: Exactly. Each zone has a designated zonal head whose job
16:10
Speaker 2: is to collect dues, which are essentially membership fees and
16:13
Speaker 2: cuts of criminal profits, and funnel that money back to
16:16
Speaker 2: the leadership in Benin City.
16:18
Speaker 1: See, here's where it gets really interesting, because we aren't
16:20
Speaker 1: talking about a few isolated guys in a basement sending
16:23
Speaker 1: out random emails asking for gift cards.
16:25
Speaker 2: No, this is industrialized.
16:27
Speaker 1: This was exposed by the whistleblower we mentioned earlier, the
16:30
Speaker 1: hacker going by the pseudonym Uche Tobias. So Tobias is
16:34
Speaker 1: actually an anti-fraud investigator in his private life. And he
16:38
Speaker 1: started hunting Black Axe after seeing the sheer financial devastation
16:41
Speaker 1: they caused to scam victims around the world.
16:44
Speaker 2: And Tobias took an enormous personal risk by poking around
16:46
Speaker 2: in their servers.
16:47
Speaker 1: He really did.
16:49
Speaker 2: When Black Axe realized what he was doing, they sent
16:51
Speaker 2: him messages online saying, a manhunt will befall you. the
16:55
Speaker 2: axe will pierce through your skull.
16:57
Speaker 1: Good lord.
16:58
Speaker 2: One particularly gruesome threat read, I will lick your blood
17:02
Speaker 2: and chew your eyes.
17:03
Speaker 1: That is... I can't even imagine reading that directed at me.
17:07
Speaker 2: But Tobias didn't back down. Through his infiltration, he estimates
17:10
Speaker 2: the organization has upwards of 30,000 members globally.
17:14
Speaker 1: 30,000 members. Operating across four continents. And the hacks show
17:20
Speaker 1: them collaborating on incredibly sophisticated online scams. We are talking
17:24
Speaker 1: about Romance scams, where they prey on lonely people for months.
17:28
Speaker 1: Fake inheritance scams. Real estate fraud. And business email compromise.
17:34
Speaker 2: We should really pause on business email compromise, or BEC.
17:37
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely.
17:39
Speaker 2: Because it really illustrates the sophisticated mechanics of their operation.
17:42
Speaker 2: This isn't a simple phishing link. Right.
17:46
Speaker 1: I always try to explain BEC like a digital version
17:49
Speaker 1: of a highly choreographed heist.
17:50
Speaker 2: How do you mean?
17:51
Speaker 1: Well, imagine a con man putting on a perfectly tailored...
17:55
Speaker 1: Fake armored truck uniform. He walks confidently into a corporate lobby,
17:59
Speaker 1: gnaws to the security guard, and simply asks the receptionist
18:02
Speaker 1: to hand over the day's deposits.
18:04
Speaker 2: Okay, I see where you're going.
18:05
Speaker 1: He completely bypasses the massive steel vault, the corporate firewall,
18:09
Speaker 1: by hacking the human being. He just looks so legitimate
18:13
Speaker 1: that the receptionist just hands him the cash.
18:15
Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. And the leaked documents show
18:18
Speaker 2: exactly how Axemen execute this. They spend weeks in the
18:21
Speaker 2: reconnaissance phase.
18:23
Speaker 1: Weeks just watching.
18:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. They compromise a single email account within a target company,
18:27
Speaker 2: often an executive or an accountant. They don't steal anything immediately. Instead,
18:32
Speaker 2: they just sit silently in the inbox, monitoring the flow
18:35
Speaker 2: of communication.
18:36
Speaker 1: Learning the ropes. Right.
18:37
Speaker 2: They learn the tone of voice the CEO uses. They
18:40
Speaker 2: figure out when the company pays its major vendors. And
18:43
Speaker 2: then at the exact right moment, they spoof an invoice.
18:46
Speaker 1: Boom.
18:47
Speaker 2: They send an email that looks identical to the real
18:49
Speaker 2: vendor using the exact same language. simply stating that the
18:52
Speaker 2: banking details for this month's multimillion-dollar payment have changed. The accountant,
18:56
Speaker 2: trusting the internal email, wires the money directly into an
18:59
Speaker 2: account controlled by Black Axe.
19:01
Speaker 1: And the documents reveal a corporate-style efficiency to all of this.
19:04
Speaker 1: It's not just one smart guy figuring it out. Members
19:07
Speaker 1: actively share what they call formats. Formats? Yeah. These are
19:11
Speaker 1: essentially detailed, step-by-step blueprints on how to execute specific types
19:15
Speaker 1: of fraud. If a member figures out a new way
19:18
Speaker 1: to bypass a bank's security protocol... They write a format
19:22
Speaker 1: and distribute it to the network.
19:23
Speaker 2: It's like an evil franchise model.
19:25
Speaker 1: Exactly. They trade these formats, they use networks of forged
19:29
Speaker 1: and stolen passports, and they adopt what they call catcher identities.
19:33
Speaker 1: These fake personas meticulously crafted to reel in victims. And internally,
19:39
Speaker 1: they refer to the people they're scamming as mugu or maye,
19:42
Speaker 1: which are regional slang terms for idiots.
19:45
Speaker 2: Wow.
19:46
Speaker 1: There is zero empathy for the victims.
19:48
Speaker 2: None. And the amounts of money they are stealing are
19:51
Speaker 2: literally life-ruining. The BBC found a specific case in the
19:55
Speaker 2: leaked emails from 2010 involving a man in California.
19:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read about this one.
20:00
Speaker 2: He was targeted by a coordinated network of suspected axemen
20:03
Speaker 2: operating out of Italy and Nigeria. They drained him of
20:06
Speaker 2: $ 3 million. Wow.
20:08
Speaker 1: Three million dollars.
20:09
Speaker 2: We're on.
20:10
Speaker 1: Gone.
20:10
Speaker 2: You can read his emails in the leaked cash and
20:13
Speaker 2: you can just hear the sheer panic setting in as
20:16
Speaker 2: he realizes his life is unraveling. He writes to one
20:19
Speaker 2: of the con men, quote, the bank that I was
20:21
Speaker 2: working with does not seem to exist. Can I make
20:24
Speaker 2: this any clearer? The bank in Switzerland seems to be fraudulent.
20:29
Speaker 1: It is heartbreaking.
20:30
Speaker 2: It is.
20:31
Speaker 1: You are reading a man realizing in real time that
20:34
Speaker 1: his entire life savings have vanished into thin air.
20:36
Speaker 2: It really is.
20:37
Speaker 1: And that California case is just a drop in the ocean.
20:41
Speaker 1: In 2017, Canadian authorities busted a money laundering scheme directly
20:45
Speaker 1: linked to Black Axe that was worth more than $ 5 billion.
20:49
Speaker 2: $ 5 billion.
20:51
Speaker 1: Let that number sink in.
20:52
Speaker 2: Let's break down how you even begin to move $ 5 billion,
20:55
Speaker 2: because it requires an entirely different level of criminal infrastructure. Right.
21:00
Speaker 1: You can't just wire $ 5 billion from a scammed corporation
21:04
Speaker 1: into a bank in Benin City.
21:05
Speaker 2: No, the global banking system flags that immediately. Instead, organizations
21:10
Speaker 2: like Black Axe utilize what is known as trade-based money
21:13
Speaker 2: laundering alongside massive networks of money mules.
21:17
Speaker 1: Okay, so how does that actually work in practice? If
21:20
Speaker 1: they steal a million dollars from a company in California,
21:23
Speaker 1: how does it end up buying weapons or mansions in Nigeria?
21:28
Speaker 2: It happens in layers. So first, the stolen funds from
21:31
Speaker 2: California are wired into a mule account. perhaps a compromised
21:36
Speaker 2: account of an unwitting college student in Canada.
21:38
Speaker 1: Okay.
21:39
Speaker 2: That student is instructed to quickly wire the money to
21:42
Speaker 2: a shell company. This shell company, which looks perfectly legitimate
21:46
Speaker 2: on paper, then uses the dirty money to purchase high-value goods,
21:50
Speaker 2: say luxury cars or heavy machinery in North America.
21:53
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
21:54
Speaker 2: Those physical goods are then shipped to Nigeria. Once in Nigeria,
21:57
Speaker 2: the cars are sold for clean, local currency.
22:00
Speaker 1: That is brilliant and terrifying.
22:02
Speaker 2: The dirty money has been transformed into a physical asset,
22:05
Speaker 2: shipped across borders legally, and then converted back into clean
22:08
Speaker 2: cash in the hands of the syndicate. It's incredibly difficult
22:11
Speaker 2: for law enforcement to track because it blends seamlessly with
22:14
Speaker 2: legitimate global trade.
22:16
Speaker 1: That is just mind bending. And because of that sophistication,
22:19
Speaker 1: according to the 2021 Organized Crime Index, Nigeria now has
22:23
Speaker 1: the highest levels of organized crime in all of Africa.
22:26
Speaker 1: And Black Axe is rapidly expanding its footprint globally.
22:29
Speaker 2: They really are everywhere.
22:31
Speaker 1: They've expanded so heavily into Italy that local authorities are
22:34
Speaker 1: actually reviving decades-old anti-mafia laws, laws originally designed to fight
22:39
Speaker 1: the Cosa Nostra just to tackle black acts.
22:41
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
22:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they are reportedly overwhelming local Italian crime networks.
22:47
Speaker 1: In 2021, they arrested 30 suspected members in Italy for
22:50
Speaker 1: human trafficking, prostitution, and internet fraud. And in the U.S.,
22:55
Speaker 1: the FBI has launched massive operations, charging over 35 individuals
22:58
Speaker 1: with multimillion-dollar fraud.
23:01
Speaker 2: We have to listen to the experts on this. Scott Augenbaum,
23:04
Speaker 2: a former FBI special agent who spent 30 years in
23:07
Speaker 2: the cybercrime department, he dealt with hundreds of Black Axe victims.
23:11
Speaker 1: What's his take on it?
23:12
Speaker 2: He points out that cybercrime is now a multi-trillion dollar,
23:16
Speaker 2: completely out of control industry. He has seen companies go
23:21
Speaker 2: completely out of business, life savings entirely wiped out, and
23:25
Speaker 2: lives completely destroyed.
23:27
Speaker 1: Which brings me to a massive logical hurdle.
23:30
Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
23:31
Speaker 1: If this group is generating billions of dollars, if the
23:34
Speaker 1: FBI is actively hunting them, if Canadian authorities are tracking
23:37
Speaker 1: $ 5 billion laundering schemes through international trade, how are they
23:42
Speaker 1: operating so openly?
23:44
Speaker 2: Right.
23:44
Speaker 1: You can't just hide 30,000 members and billions of dollars
23:48
Speaker 1: under a mattress. How do you coordinate all of this
23:50
Speaker 1: in plain sight?
23:52
Speaker 2: To understand how they operate with such impunity, we have
23:55
Speaker 2: to look at how they interface with the legitimate world.
23:57
Speaker 2: They use a massive corporate smokescreen.
24:01
Speaker 1: A smokescreen.
24:02
Speaker 2: Yes. And to understand the smokescreen, we have to look
24:04
Speaker 2: back at the group's origins. Black Acts didn't start as
24:07
Speaker 2: a cyber mafia. No. It originated in the 1970s at
24:11
Speaker 2: the University of Benin. It grew out of a legally
24:14
Speaker 2: recognized student fraternity called the Neo-Black Movement of Africa, or
24:18
Speaker 2: the NBM.
24:19
Speaker 1: Right. And back in the 70s, the political climate in
24:23
Speaker 1: Africa was intensely focused on liberation. The NBM was actually
24:28
Speaker 1: inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle happening in South Africa.
24:31
Speaker 2: They had very noble roots.
24:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, their founders claimed their primary goal was to fight
24:36
Speaker 1: oppression and promote pan-Africanism. Their symbol was a black axe
24:41
Speaker 1: breaking through heavy chains, like a very potent visual metaphor
24:44
Speaker 1: for breaking the chains of colonialism and systemic oppression.
24:48
Speaker 2: That makes total sense for the era.
24:51
Speaker 1: Structurally, it mirrored secret societies like the Freemasons, which... had
24:55
Speaker 1: a historical presence in Nigeria during the colonial era. It
24:58
Speaker 1: was all about secrecy, brotherly commitment, intellectual debate, and liberation.
25:03
Speaker 2: And here is where the duality becomes deeply complex, because
25:07
Speaker 2: today the NBM is a legally registered company with the
25:10
Speaker 2: Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission.
25:12
Speaker 1: They are highly public, right?
25:14
Speaker 2: Very public. They have corporate offices. They hold massive annual
25:17
Speaker 2: conferences that attract prominent politicians, business leaders, and celebrities.
25:22
Speaker 1: Hold on. If you look at their public relations, They
25:25
Speaker 1: claim to have three million members worldwide. Three million.
25:28
Speaker 2: It's massive.
25:29
Speaker 1: It's larger than the workforce of Walmart. Are you telling
25:32
Speaker 1: me international law enforcement is trying to take down an
25:34
Speaker 1: organization that is publicly cutting ribbons at orphanages and hosting
25:38
Speaker 1: black tie galas?
25:39
Speaker 2: That is exactly the tension here. If you ask the
25:42
Speaker 2: leadership of the NBM, they will tell you they are
25:45
Speaker 2: an entirely legitimate philanthropic organization. And we want to be
25:49
Speaker 2: very clear about presenting both sides here impartially based exactly
25:53
Speaker 2: on on what is in the source documents.
25:56
Speaker 1: Right. We are just looking at the documents.
25:58
Speaker 2: Exactly. The current president of the NBM, Oluwagun Esekakor, told
26:03
Speaker 2: the BBC that NBM is absolutely not black acts. He
26:08
Speaker 2: stated unequivocally that NBM has nothing to do with criminality
26:12
Speaker 2: and that they exist to promote greatness and uplift their communities.
26:16
Speaker 1: And their legal team backs that up.
26:18
Speaker 2: The NBM's lawyers are adamant that any member caught engaging
26:22
Speaker 2: in crime or found to be part of Black Axe,
26:25
Speaker 2: is expelled immediately. They claim Black Axe is simply a
26:29
Speaker 2: rogue breakaway faction that hijacked their branding and their symbols
26:33
Speaker 2: decades ago.
26:34
Speaker 1: But international law enforcement agencies take a drastically different position.
26:39
Speaker 1: They do not buy the rogue faction defense. No, they don't.
26:42
Speaker 1: The U.S. Justice Department, during its prosecutions of Black Axe members,
26:46
Speaker 1: has explicitly stated in court documents that the NBM is
26:49
Speaker 1: a criminal organization and is part of the Black Axe.
26:53
Speaker 2: That's a strong statement.
26:55
Speaker 1: And authorities in Canada have gone on record stating that
26:58
Speaker 1: the NBM and Black Axe are, quote, the same. The
27:02
Speaker 1: hacked documents obtained by the BBC present compelling evidence that
27:06
Speaker 1: severely challenges the NBM's claims of separation.
27:09
Speaker 2: Right. Which brings us to a man named Augustus Bemigo Ayoyobo.
27:14
Speaker 2: He was the president of the NBM from 2012 to 2016. Okay.
27:16
Speaker 2: What's his story? Well, on paper, to the public, he
27:21
Speaker 2: is a very successful investor and hotelier in Nigeria, a
27:24
Speaker 2: real pillar of the business community. But many of the
27:27
Speaker 2: hacked documents were actually sourced directly from his personal email account. Oh, wow.
27:32
Speaker 1: That's a major leak.
27:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. And these files paint a very different picture of
27:37
Speaker 2: the activities conducted during his NBM presidency.
27:40
Speaker 1: Because the BBC investigators verified two major cases from his
27:43
Speaker 1: leaked data, where he appears to be deeply involved in
27:46
Speaker 1: inheritance scams, targeting citizens in the U.K. and the U.S.
27:49
Speaker 2: And these were big scams.
27:51
Speaker 1: Huge. These specific victims lost over $ 3. 3 million. In one
27:56
Speaker 1: email sent to Bimigo by a suspected co-conspirator, it reads, quote,
28:01
Speaker 1: we have removed him close to $ 1M.
28:03
Speaker 2: Just brazen.
28:05
Speaker 1: The email included the victim's full personal details, banking information,
28:09
Speaker 1: and instructions on how to advance the scam to extract
28:12
Speaker 1: even more money.
28:13
Speaker 2: And it wasn't a one-off anomaly. The documents suggest Bamigo
28:17
Speaker 2: was actively sending out those formats, you know, the scam
28:20
Speaker 2: blueprints we discussed earlier, to a network of collaborators on
28:24
Speaker 2: at least 50 different occasions.
28:26
Speaker 1: 50 times.
28:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. In one highly revealing message where he's discussing expanding
28:31
Speaker 2: the NBM's global footprint, he literally suggests that members should
28:35
Speaker 2: establish non-governmental organizations, NGOs, around the world for the specific
28:40
Speaker 2: purpose of raking in millions. Wow. He is outlining a
28:44
Speaker 2: strategy to use philanthropic fronts to facilitate financial fraud.
28:49
Speaker 1: And the real smoking gun regarding the connection between the
28:52
Speaker 1: two groups is how he communicated internally. When messaging NBM members,
28:57
Speaker 1: the supposedly legitimate, peaceful organization, Bimico addresses them as I, Axeman.
29:03
Speaker 2: He uses the gang terminology. Yes.
29:06
Speaker 1: In one response sent to him via Facebook Messenger, someone
29:09
Speaker 1: refers to him as the National Elder Black Axe. Furthermore,
29:13
Speaker 1: in 2019, his own sister-in-law was charged with laundering one
29:17
Speaker 1: million pounds in the UK, and the Crown Prosecution Service
29:20
Speaker 1: publicly referred to him as the leader of Black Axe.
29:23
Speaker 2: Now, we should note that when the BBC presented this
29:25
Speaker 2: specific evidence to the NBM leadership, they promised to investigate
29:29
Speaker 2: the matter and reiterate their code of conduct to their members.
29:32
Speaker 1: Did Bemigo say anything?
29:34
Speaker 2: Bemigo himself did not respond to the allegations, but our
29:37
Speaker 2: former enforcer, Dr. Stone, who was not only a Black
29:40
Speaker 2: Axe member, but also held the position of chairman within
29:43
Speaker 2: the NBM in Benin City, says the separation between the
29:47
Speaker 2: two entities is an illusion.
29:49
Speaker 1: What were his exact words?
29:50
Speaker 2: He says, quote, it is one and the same. It's
29:53
Speaker 2: just a kind of formality to cover the informalities. It's
29:56
Speaker 2: a coin with two sides. The NBM provides the legal shield.
30:00
Speaker 2: while Black Axe wields the sword.
30:02
Speaker 1: This raises an important question. How does a global society
30:06
Speaker 1: and international law enforcement effectively dismantle a criminal enterprise when
30:12
Speaker 1: it has successfully embedded itself within a legally registered, seemingly
30:16
Speaker 1: philanthropic corporation?
30:17
Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult.
30:19
Speaker 1: You can't just arrest an entire NGO that donates to
30:22
Speaker 1: the police and funds local schools. The whistleblower, Uche Tobias,
30:26
Speaker 1: argues that the NBM is nothing but a highly sophisticated charade.
30:30
Speaker 1: A public face meticulously designed to subvert public opinion and
30:34
Speaker 1: hide a mafia.
30:36
Speaker 2: And they've built this brand globally.
30:38
Speaker 1: They really have, with dozens of social media accounts boasting
30:42
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of followers, often subtly using axe emojis
30:45
Speaker 1: or the slogan I.E. Axemen to signal their true allegiance
30:50
Speaker 1: in plain sight.
30:51
Speaker 2: Because having a corporate front is highly effective. It allows
30:55
Speaker 2: you to rent conference halls, open bank accounts, and move
30:58
Speaker 2: money under the guise of legitimate business.
31:01
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
31:02
Speaker 2: But to operate with the kind of absolute impunity we
31:04
Speaker 2: are seeing, where violence is public, where hits are posted
31:07
Speaker 2: on forums, and where billions are stolen globally without massive crackdowns,
31:12
Speaker 2: you need more than just a registered NGO.
31:15
Speaker 1: What else do you need?
31:16
Speaker 2: You need friends in very high places. And that leads
31:19
Speaker 2: us directly to the allegations of infiltration into the Nigerian
31:22
Speaker 2: political system. Okay. Yes.
31:24
Speaker 1: To understand this political dimension, we have to look again
31:27
Speaker 1: at Edo State, which is really the epicenter of this organization.
31:31
Speaker 2: Right.
31:31
Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier that Edo State faces severe socioeconomic challenges.
31:36
Speaker 1: The UN Commissioner for Refugees reports a staggering statistic. 70%
31:40
Speaker 1: of all Nigerians who migrate abroad illegally originate from Edo State.
31:45
Speaker 2: 70%.
31:46
Speaker 1: That is a massive exodus. It is. And Black Axe
31:49
Speaker 1: reportedly plays a pivotal role in trafficking these individuals from
31:52
Speaker 1: Benin City... through the dangerous routes of North Africa, across
31:56
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean, and into southern Italy. It is an economy
31:59
Speaker 1: built entirely on desperation and exploitation.
32:02
Speaker 2: And within that desperate economy, political power is deeply intertwined
32:07
Speaker 2: with street muscle.
32:08
Speaker 1: How so?
32:09
Speaker 2: You basically cannot hold political office without controlling the streets.
32:13
Speaker 2: The BBC interviewed a man named Tony Kabaka. Kabaka is
32:17
Speaker 2: a self-confessed cultist and a former member of the NBM.
32:21
Speaker 1: Okay.
32:22
Speaker 2: For years, up until 2019, he worked for the government
32:25
Speaker 2: in Benin. Through his private company, Akubi Ventures, he employed
32:29
Speaker 2: over 7,000 tax collectors and generated billions in revenue for
32:34
Speaker 2: the state. He was a central cog in the state's
32:37
Speaker 2: financial machinery.
32:39
Speaker 1: But Kabaka's reality is pretty jarring, right?
32:41
Speaker 2: Oh, very.
32:42
Speaker 1: The reporters interviewed him in his mansion, which is this
32:45
Speaker 1: massive white building with grand Roman columns, like a true
32:48
Speaker 1: symbol of immense wealth. But the walls of this mansion
32:51
Speaker 1: are absolutely littered with bullet holes from repeated assassination attempts.
32:55
Speaker 2: It's like a war zone.
32:57
Speaker 1: He is a wealthy man living in a literal war zone.
33:00
Speaker 1: And when asked about the intersection of gangs and government,
33:03
Speaker 1: Kabaka was blunt. He didn't mince words at all.
33:06
Speaker 2: What did he say?
33:06
Speaker 1: He said, if you sat me down and say, can
33:09
Speaker 1: you identify black acts in government? I will identify. Most politicians,
33:14
Speaker 1: almost everybody is involved.
33:16
Speaker 2: This is what the local activists call mafia politics. Curtis Agbabor,
33:20
Speaker 2: the activist we mentioned earlier who tries to keep kids
33:23
Speaker 2: out of the cults, he says the government at all
33:25
Speaker 2: levels actually incentivizes youth into cultism.
33:29
Speaker 1: Why would they do that?
33:30
Speaker 2: Because when election season comes around, prospective politicians need muscle
33:34
Speaker 2: to secure victories. They don't just rely on campaigns and speeches.
33:38
Speaker 2: They hire Black Acts members to intimidate their political rivals,
33:42
Speaker 2: to physically guard ballot boxes, to prevent tampering by rivals,
33:45
Speaker 2: and to coerce the public into voting for them.
33:48
Speaker 1: So they use them as enforcers.
33:49
Speaker 2: Exactly. They provide the gangs with money, logistical support and weapons.
33:54
Speaker 1: And it's a transaction.
33:55
Speaker 2: Because in return for this militant support during elections, the
33:59
Speaker 2: gangs are rewarded with legitimate positions within the government apparatus.
34:03
Speaker 2: They get state contracts, they get government salaries, official protection.
34:07
Speaker 1: That's right. We actually have documentary evidence of this transaction
34:10
Speaker 1: from the hacks. Two documents leaked from the NBM's internal
34:13
Speaker 1: communications agency. And they outline this exact quid pro quo
34:17
Speaker 1: in stark detail.
34:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. The documents show that 35 million naira, which is
34:23
Speaker 2: over 64,000 British pounds, was funneled to the NBM in
34:28
Speaker 2: the Benin zone.
34:29
Speaker 1: And what was the stated purpose?
34:30
Speaker 2: The stated purpose in the document was to, quote, protect
34:33
Speaker 2: votes during a governorship election in 2012.
34:37
Speaker 1: And the payoff for protecting those votes? The files state
34:40
Speaker 1: that in exchange for this protection, 80 employment slots were
34:43
Speaker 1: allocated to the MBM for immediate employment by the state government.
34:47
Speaker 2: 80 state salaries.
34:49
Speaker 1: Exactly. The documents allege this exchange was facilitated directly through
34:53
Speaker 1: the late Chief of Staff, Honorable Sam Iradia. They literally
34:57
Speaker 1: traded violence for state salaries.
35:00
Speaker 2: And we must emphasize again that we are imparting what
35:02
Speaker 2: is written in the source documents. We are not passing
35:05
Speaker 2: judgment on the Nigerian political system.
35:07
Speaker 1: As a whole. Right. We're just reading the hacks. Exactly.
35:10
Speaker 2: However, the scale of these allegations detailed in the leaks
35:13
Speaker 2: reaches the highest levels of local governance. For instance, the
35:16
Speaker 2: former head of the NBM, Augustus Bamiho, the very man
35:20
Speaker 2: accused of running international inheritance scams and trading formats, he
35:24
Speaker 2: actually ran for office in the Nigerian House of Representatives
35:28
Speaker 2: in 2019 under the ruling all-progressive Congress party, the APC.
35:32
Speaker 1: Furthermore, during interviews with the NBM's own legal representatives... The
35:36
Speaker 1: lawyers openly confirmed that many politicians are members of their organization.
35:41
Speaker 2: They didn't hide it at all.
35:42
Speaker 1: No. One of their solicitors actually named the deputy governor
35:45
Speaker 1: of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, as a member, stating there
35:49
Speaker 1: is nothing to hide about it because the MBM is
35:51
Speaker 1: a legitimate organization.
35:53
Speaker 2: Right.
35:54
Speaker 1: The BBC traveled to Benin City to interview the deputy
35:57
Speaker 1: governor about these alleged links to an organization tied to
36:00
Speaker 1: global crime, but he failed to appear for the interview twice,
36:04
Speaker 1: and the government did not respond. to the allegations.
36:07
Speaker 2: And again, we are strictly reporting the claims from the
36:10
Speaker 2: BBC's findings, not endorsing any political viewpoint.
36:14
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean?
36:16
Speaker 2: We are looking at a situation where a country is
36:19
Speaker 2: theoretically trying to combat organized crime, but the crime syndicate
36:23
Speaker 2: is allegedly baked right into the government apparatus itself.
36:27
Speaker 1: It's a paradox. If the police who are supposed to
36:29
Speaker 1: arrest you and the politicians who make the laws are
36:32
Speaker 1: part of the same brotherhood you swore a blood oath
36:34
Speaker 1: to in the forest... How do you even begin to
36:37
Speaker 1: stop the violence? The traditional mechanisms of justice are completely paralyzed.
36:42
Speaker 2: According to Dr. Stone, the former butcher, you can't rely
36:45
Speaker 2: on external law enforcement to solve this.
36:47
Speaker 1: Why not?
36:48
Speaker 2: The system is too enmeshed, too corrupted by the very
36:51
Speaker 2: people it's supposed to police. He believes that the only
36:54
Speaker 2: viable solution to the violence has to come from within
36:56
Speaker 2: the cult itself. There has to be an internal fracture.
36:59
Speaker 1: Is there any sign of that happening?
37:01
Speaker 2: Surprisingly, yes. The leaked internal communications show that he isn't
37:05
Speaker 2: alone in this sentiment. There is significant internal pushback from
37:09
Speaker 2: members who are exhausted by the relentless bloodshed and the
37:12
Speaker 2: negative global attention it brings.
37:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember seeing that. Mixed in with the hacked
37:16
Speaker 1: emails about million-dollar scams and the forums posting gruesome hits,
37:22
Speaker 1: there are genuine pleas for peace.
37:24
Speaker 2: It's quite striking to read.
37:26
Speaker 1: One member posted, quote, The reason some of us joined
37:28
Speaker 1: NBM was to join in the fight of oppression. But now...
37:33
Speaker 1: We have been labeled a criminal organization with evidence all over.
37:37
Speaker 2: And another post reads, I didn't become an ax man
37:40
Speaker 2: to take lives. I became an ax man in the
37:42
Speaker 2: bid to fraternize. Please stop these killings.
37:46
Speaker 1: There is this huge cognitive dissonance happening where some members
37:50
Speaker 1: realize the anti-apartheid ideals of the 1970s have completely vanished
37:54
Speaker 1: into pure criminality.
37:57
Speaker 2: Now, the NBM leadership, for their part, maintains they are
37:59
Speaker 2: actively trying to root out criminal infiltrators who are harming
38:02
Speaker 2: their organization's reputation.
38:04
Speaker 1: Right.
38:05
Speaker 2: But Dr. Stone isn't waiting for corporate statements. He is
38:08
Speaker 2: taking direct action on the ground. He has formed what
38:11
Speaker 2: he calls the Rainbow Coalition.
38:13
Speaker 1: What's that?
38:14
Speaker 2: It is an advocacy group comprised of former cultists, influential citizens,
38:18
Speaker 2: and academic professors. Their entire mission is to step into
38:22
Speaker 2: the crossfire and de-escalate tensions when rival gangs clash. They
38:26
Speaker 2: use their former status and their intimate knowledge of the
38:29
Speaker 2: gang structures to negotiate truces and steer black acts away
38:32
Speaker 2: from the street violence.
38:34
Speaker 1: Dr. Stone says the coalition's goal is fundamentally simple. Reduce
38:38
Speaker 1: the rate of death among the youth and reduce the
38:41
Speaker 1: rate of widows and orphans being created in their communities.
38:44
Speaker 2: That's a powerful mission.
38:46
Speaker 1: Chukwa Omasah, the co-founder of the Rainbow Coalition, said something
38:50
Speaker 1: that really stuck with me. When talking about the enforcers
38:53
Speaker 1: who commit these murders, he said, Everyone has a conscience.
38:57
Speaker 1: You may deny it on camera, deny it during public,
39:00
Speaker 1: but you cannot deny it in your quiet time. It
39:03
Speaker 1: will haunt you.
39:04
Speaker 2: It echoes exactly what Dr. Stone experiences with his flashbacks.
39:09
Speaker 1: Exactly.
39:10
Speaker 2: It is a profound observation about the inescapable psychological burden
39:14
Speaker 2: of violence. But leaving a cult, especially one that operates
39:18
Speaker 2: as a highly lucrative mafia, and then actively campaigning against
39:22
Speaker 2: its violent practices, that is incredibly dangerous.
39:26
Speaker 1: You're painting a target on your back.
39:28
Speaker 2: You are threatening their power structure.
39:30
Speaker 1: Dr. Stone is acutely aware that the very men he
39:33
Speaker 1: once called brothers, the men he shed blood with, might
39:37
Speaker 1: decide he is a liability to their business operations.
39:40
Speaker 2: The tension in Dr.
39:42
Speaker 1: Stone's daily life is just unbelievable. Here is a man
39:46
Speaker 1: dedicating his life to preaching peace, de-escalation, And academic study.
39:52
Speaker 1: But the reality of his past means he can never
39:55
Speaker 1: truly rest.
39:56
Speaker 2: No, he can't.
39:56
Speaker 1: He admitted to the reporters, with a sort of wry half-smile,
40:01
Speaker 1: that he keeps a licensed shotgun at his home. And
40:04
Speaker 1: he drives around with a three-foot-long sword hidden in his
40:07
Speaker 1: car for personal safety.
40:09
Speaker 2: A three-foot sword. Yeah.
40:11
Speaker 1: He told them, quote, if they come after me, can't
40:14
Speaker 1: I also come after them? The instinct of the butcher,
40:17
Speaker 1: you know, the instinct for raw, Physical survival is still
40:21
Speaker 1: right there below the surface.
40:22
Speaker 2: It perfectly encapsulates the inescapable cycle of this world. You
40:27
Speaker 2: can try to change the system. You can advocate for peace.
40:30
Speaker 2: You can form coalitions. But you are always carrying the
40:33
Speaker 2: sword of your past. The threat of violence never truly dissipates.
40:38
Speaker 1: This entire deep dive has been a staggering journey. We've
40:42
Speaker 1: traced how a student group formed in the 1970s to
40:44
Speaker 1: fight apartheid, evolved into a hyper-violent street gang bonded by trauma,
40:50
Speaker 1: and then mutated again into a highly sophisticated multi-billion dollar
40:54
Speaker 1: global cyber mafia that has allegedly infiltrated the very government
40:59
Speaker 1: meant to stop it.
41:00
Speaker 2: It's a lot to take in.
41:01
Speaker 1: It is. And I want to connect this right back
41:03
Speaker 1: to you, the listener. The digital world we live in
41:07
Speaker 1: has completely dissolved physical borders. The brutal machete-wielding violence on
41:12
Speaker 1: the streets of Benin City is being directly funded by
41:15
Speaker 1: the deceptive emails that ping on your smartphone, whether you
41:18
Speaker 1: are sitting in a cafe in California, an office in London,
41:22
Speaker 1: or anywhere else in the world.
41:24
Speaker 2: It is a stark reminder of the deep, hidden interconnectedness
41:28
Speaker 2: of our modern threats. We spend so much time worrying
41:31
Speaker 2: about the security of our personal data from faceless automated
41:34
Speaker 2: algorithms or distant state-sponsored hackers. But consider this. How much
41:39
Speaker 2: of our modern digital economy, including the seemingly petty scams
41:43
Speaker 2: we often ignore or laugh off, is actually serving as
41:46
Speaker 2: the lifeblood for physical, street-level empires of violence? When you
41:51
Speaker 2: look at your spam folder today, ask yourself, what invisible
41:54
Speaker 2: chains of global influence and what unseen human cost and
41:58
Speaker 2: blood and trauma are hidden behind a simple click here link?
42:03
Speaker 1: The next time you see a strange email asking for
42:05
Speaker 1: a wire transfer or you hear a story about a
42:08
Speaker 1: handwritten note left on a windshield, you'll know that sometimes
42:13
Speaker 1: the shadows are much deeper, much more organized, and much
42:17
Speaker 1: closer than we ever want to admit. Thank you for
42:20
Speaker 1: joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning the world
42:23
Speaker 1: around you and stay curious.