Transnational Crime

According to the Nigerian army, a ransom of $300,000 was paid to pirates in the Gulf of Guinea to secure the release of the crew of a Chinese fishing boat. The party that paid the ransom is not reported. The most likely possibility is that it was the Chinese company that operated the fishing boat. The episode sheds some light of the murky operation of kidnapping and ransom payment in the Gulf of Guinea. The Chinese fishing boat was registered in Gabon. The crew consisted of six Chinese, three Indonesians, one Gabonese, and four Nigerians. The crew was held captive for about a month. A maritime security expert was cited as saying that the pirates used the hijacked vessel as a "mothership" for attacks on oil tankers.  The Gulf of Guinea is now the center of piracy in the world: in 2019, it accounted for over 90 percent of maritime kidnappings globally. Most of the pirates are Nigerian, from the Niger Delta, the region where most of Nigeria's oil comes from. The Delta has been rocked by the fall in international oil prices and the degradation of the environment by oil spills, which have damaged local agriculture and fishing while adversely impacting human health. The Nigerian government's official policy is against the payment of ransom, so the amounts are usually not made public. In this particular case, the ransom could have been paid outside of Nigeria, perhaps in Gabon. The episode illustrates how lucrative kidnapping can be, in the Gulf Guinea as well as elsewhere. The $300,000 sum is large, especially for communities that ring the Gulf of Guinea.

The killing of the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the lifting of U.S. Treasury sanctions against an Israeli businessman accused of mining-related corruption in the final hours of the Trump administration has again focused international attention on the interlocking crises in the DRC. Italian Amb. Luca Attanasio was killed when the World Food Programme caravan he was part of was stopped en route to a school feeding program in Rutshuru, near Goma, in eastern Congo. (His driver and bodyguard were also killed.) The DRC authorities are claiming that the perpetrators were part of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR); the militia denies it. The FDLR, one of some 120 separate armed groups [PDF] operating in eastern Congo, is associated with the Rwandan cabal that led the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Congolese officials frequently blame it for atrocities in eastern Congo. Dan Gertler, an Israeli mining merchant closely associated with former DRC dictator Laurent Kabila and his son-turned-successor, Joseph Kabila, in 2017 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department after being widely accused of staggering corruption. Those sanctions excluded him from the American financial system and blocked access to his American accounts. The Trump administration in its final hours in office quietly eased those sanctions. Their easing, while not necessarily illegal, violated usual Treasury procedures and has provoked outrage among human rights activists in the United States, the DRC, and elsewhere. Critics see the reprieve as a part of President Trump's wave of pardons to criminals with good connections. According to the media, the Biden administration is likely to reverse the move. Eastern Congo is a stark example of great wealth—mostly based on the strategic minerals that have made Mr. Gertler rich—amidst grinding poverty. Militias and gangs, allegedly with ties to neighboring Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, are active. Ethnic conflict is widespread. Criminality, sometimes with political links, is ubiquitous. Ebola recurs; new cases have been reported this month. Government at the national and provincial levels is notorious for corruption and appears largely alienated from the people who live there. The DRC is far from fulfilling the basic requirement of sovereignty—guaranteeing the security of its citizens. The ambassador's reputation was that he was devoted to his humanitarian mission, that he was judicious, and did not take unnecessary risks. The road traveled by the convoy was regarded as safe. So, what group killed the Italian ambassador? It may have been by a group with a political agenda. But the event also has elements of being primarily a criminal enterprise: after capturing the ambassador, the perpetrators moved him into the bush, in what is believed to have been an attempted kidnapping. He was killed only after security forces attempted to rescue him.

On February 17, a gang of "gunmen" kidnapped more than forty students, teachers, and administrators from a secondary school in Niger State. At least one student was killed. Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello has appealed for assistance from President Muhammadu Buhari, who has ordered all four service chiefs to go to Niger State to coordinate rescue operations. In December, "bandits" kidnapped some three hundred schoolboys from a school in Kankara, located in Katsina State. There have been several other mass kidnappings, though none has acquired the international notoriety of the 2014 kidnapping of more than two hundred school girls from a school in Chibok. (More than one hundred are still missing, but some recently escaped.) Most—not all—of these mass kidnappings appear to be purely mercenary. These kidnappings are different from Boko Haram attacks in the past decade where the goal was to kill those who were benefitting from Western education. In these recent instances, kidnappers are after ransom, and appear to try to keep their victims alive. Nigerian federal and state authorities always deny paying ransom. Yet they often do so. Schoolboys and bandits involved in the Kankara abduction contradicted official denials that ransom was paid. Reports suggest the Katsina State government paid N30 million (about $76,000) to recover the schoolboys. Hence, the expectation should be that unless the Kagara victims are quickly recovered, which is unlikely, either the state or federal government will pay ransom to secure the release of those who have survived. Kidnapping in Nigeria and across the Sahel can be an extraordinarily lucrative enterprise in what is one of the poorest regions in the world. "Bandits" particularly prize citizens of the European Union. As rich countries with governments susceptible to emotional public opinion, EU member states can pay enormous ransoms while always denying that they are doing so. Jihadi and criminal networks overlap in the Sahel, so kidnapping can also provide both funding and manpower for jihadi groups. At Kankara, Boko Haram's Abubakar Shekau claimed his group was behind the kidnapping, though it appears to have been purely a criminal enterprise. The United States as a matter of policy never pays ransom. The U.S. government had previously threatened to prosecute private individuals who seek to do so. Refusing to pay ransom may provide some cover for American citizens that find themselves in the Sahel. However, Americans are few in number in those areas where kidnapping is rampant.

Fola Aina is a doctoral fellow at King’s College London. He is an international security analyst with expertise on peace and security in the Lake Chad region and the Sahel region. Nolan Quinn contributed to this piece. Insecurity in northwest Nigeria and much of Sahelian West Africa has its roots in tensions and competition over resources. Oft cited are shortages of land and water, driven by environmental degradation and climate change as well as rapid population growth. However, conflicts in the region over access to minerals—especially gold—are also heating up. Moreover, illicit mining causes environmental damage, thus exacerbating land and water shortages. The mining sector in Nigeria benefits from substantial untapped solid mineral deposits, including gold and iron ore. (Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, has claimed that a single local government area in his state has more gold than South Africa.) Nigerian federal and state governments are in the process of exploring how to develop the minerals industry, which, at present, accounts for less than 1 percent [PDF] of the country’s GDP. A major impediment is the predominance of artisanal and small-scale miners, who produce an estimated 80 to 85 percent [PDF] of Nigeria’s mining output. This deprives the government of a potentially huge source of revenue: data from UN Comtrade reveals that between 2012 and 2018, about ninety-seven tonnes of gold worth over $3 billion was illegally smuggled out of Nigeria. Drawbacks from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Nigeria go beyond lost revenue. Between 2010 and 2013, over seven hundred children died [PDF] in Zamfara State due to lead poisoning associated with ASGM activities. ASGM also contaminates surrounding land, water, and air with other toxic chemicals such as mercury. Perhaps most damaging is ASGM in northwest Nigeria’s apparent links to criminal consortia. The region’s gold-tinged cash windfall has established new centers of power beyond the state’s control—a retired military officer told the International Crisis Group that ASGM activities had created “a fiefdom of deadly gangs”— leading to a destabilizing wave of rural banditry and criminality. The governments of Zamfara State—the epicenter of ASGM-related violence—and Katsina State have cautioned that proceeds from the illegal sale of gold are funding weapons purchases by armed groups. In an attempt to sever what Zamfara’s police chief called a “strong and glaring nexus between the activities of armed bandits and illicit miners,” in April 2019 the federal government suspended mining in Zamfara State. The ban, which was largely ineffective, was lifted early last year. Numerous military and police operations in the northwest have also failed to restore security. Zamfara’s government has now resorted to offering repentant bandits two cows for every AK-47 they surrender as part of a peace initiative. A nascent, alternative countermeasure has been the 2019 launch of the Presidential Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI). An ambitious initiative, PAGMI is currently in early stages of implementation, with Kebbi and Osun States—the latter located in Nigeria’s southwest—serving as “pilots” before the program scales up to Kaduna, Zamfara, and Niger States. (Niger State borders to the south the North West geopolitical zone.) The initiative aims to create over 500,000 new mining and formalized jobs and register thousands of artisanal miners in the national identity management system. By July of last year, about 20,000 miners had already been registered in Kebbi and Osun States. PAGMI allows artisanal miners to sell gold through the National Gold Purchase Program, which will be able to supply the Central Bank of Nigeria with much-needed foreign reserves. PAGMI’s success—or lack thereof—will come down to implementation. When villagers who received food handouts during COVID-19 lockdowns were attacked by bandits, it highlighted the challenges the government faces in providing services in the northwest. The government will need to enhance security to allow it to interact with locals hoping to benefit from formalized ASGM. But a strategy to restore security that focuses on use of force will continue to fail. A well implemented, multilayered strategy, meanwhile, could herald the gradual restoration of peace and security in the troubled region—a necessity for kickstarting development in the face of resource shortages. Prioritizing cooperation between the federal and state governments in the affected region is important yet insufficient. A more effective approach would empower local actors such as traditional rulers, district heads, women, and youth, all of whom have exhibited commendable resilience amid widespread insecurity, by providing resources to address social ills and establishing lines of communication for better information sharing. With lives and livelihoods at stake, time is a luxury the region does not have. A better approach is needed now.

There has long been speculation about how Boko Haram and other terrorist organizations are funded. Some funding clearly comes [PDF] from criminal activity, with kidnapping particularly lucrative, and from bank robberies. Presumably, protection rackets also play a role. At some times and in some places, Boko Haram has been able to impose "taxes" on the local population. Boko Haram has also been involved in trading, especially in the Lake Chad Basin. Weapons—a major expense—appear often to come from government armories, sometimes because "the back gate was left unlocked." In southern, predominantly Christian Nigeria, it is often assumed that northern "big men" provide funding for Boko Haram. Most of this is speculation. It also appears likely that Boko Haram's brand of terrorism is cheap; the organization does not require the levels of funding characteristic of terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East or Europe. Significant, therefore, that the Federal Court of Appeals in the United Arab Emirates, which sits in Abu Dhabi, has sentenced to jail six Nigerians for transferring $782,000 from Dubai to Boko Haram in Nigeria. Two were sentenced to life imprisonment, four to ten years—all for violation of UAE anti-terrorism laws. Two "Boko Haram agents" in Nigeria received the funds, according to media based on court proceedings. One was a "Nigerian government official" who also funneled "government money" to Boko Haram, according to Nigerian media. The defendants did not deny that they transferred to money but claimed that doing so was not illegal. Media accounts are sketchy and incomplete. The defendants could have maintained that the recipients were not Boko Haram. Claims that the UAE court was corrupt are absent from media reporting. The sentences were relatively light. Those sentenced to life imprisonment could have received the death penalty. The amount of money transferred seems large, but no indication of the source of the money is given. Claims that Nigerian government officials were conniving with Boko Haram are common and should not be taken at face value. On the other hand, after more than a decade and often murderous splits, Boko Haram is still far from defeated, implying that it still enjoys support.

Up to now, radical jihadi activity in West Africa has been centered in Mali—with spillover to adjacent parts of Burkina Faso and Niger—and the Lake Chad Basin. The two locales are now increasingly bridged by jihadi activity in northwest Nigeria, where resurgent struggles over land and water with a cast of ethnically aligned fighters and flourishing criminality provide them with new space. Jihadi movements in all three regions are fractious, subject to bloody internal rivalries, and overlap with criminal elements. They do share a declared goal of establishing polities based on Islamic law—sharia—and the destruction of the fragile, postcolonial secular states in the region. (National borders, established by the former colonial powers, are largely meaningless for most local people, as well as for criminals and jihadis.) Were they to be successful, however, it is by no means clear that they could establish coherent territorial governance much above the village level. No charismatic leader such as Abu Musab al-Barnawi, Osama bin Laden, or even Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has emerged to impose unity on the various jihadi groups now active from the Lake Chad Basin to the western Sahel. More likely would be decentralized regimes of warlordism led by Islamist and criminal opportunists. Criminally inflected chaos and a humanitarian disaster are more likely than a resurrected, unified Islamic State. France has the most modern military force countering the jihadis—Operation Barkhane numbers some 4,500 soldiers—and supports most of the weak militaries of francophone West Africa. The United States provides France with limited logistical and intelligence support from its drone base in Niger. It also trains small numbers of soldiers drawn from local militaries. Jihadi forces at present are resurgent throughout the region. Were the French to leave, jihadis would likely overrun Mali and adjacent territories even if they could not govern them. In the Lake Chad Basin—mostly in Nigeria but also in Chad, Cameroon, and Niger—the jihadis are primarily factions of Boko Haram, some with links to the Islamic State, others to al-Qaeda. (Observers are divided as to the tactical or strategic significance of those links.) Nigeria has taken the lead in attempting to coordinate its efforts with those of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. Other than in Niger, the United States has no significant security presence in the Lake Chad region or the western Sahel. Across the region, the jihadis, far from defeated, appear to be strengthening. Northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin have a much larger population and, accordingly, the humanitarian disaster associated with fighting is much greater than in the western Sahel. (The United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and other international donors already provide significant humanitarian assistance right across West Africa, including the Sahel.) These two centers of jihadism are separated by northwest Nigeria. That region is increasingly plagued by conflicts over water and land use, exacerbated by human and cattle population growth, climate change, and poor governance. A borderland between the Sahara, the Sahel, and better-watered lands to the south, the region has long been a center of smuggling as well as trading. With a harsh and variable climate—as in the rest of the Sahel—population movements have been a constant. So, too, have been waves of Islamic religious revival, which influence present-day jihadi activity. Jihadi groups are taking advantage of a general societal breakdown in certain areas. The Nigerian government has responded by seeking to crush the jihadis and the bandits through military and police methods, so far to no avail. Government-sponsored proposals, some fanciful, prescribe reorganization of the cattle industry. None address the huge population increase, climate change, and poor governance that provide jihadis and criminals with oxygen. A different strategy is possible. Much of northwest Nigeria is included in the domains of the Sultan of Sokoto and his subordinate emirs. (The sultan is the preeminent Muslim traditional ruler in Nigeria, and his domains stretch into neighboring countries.) Muslim rulers provide traditional justice that often commands greater popular confidence than that handed down by the government in far-off Abuja. Their agents sometimes have a good understanding of what is happening on the ground—the local drivers of conflict. Jihadis despise these traditional rulers as heretics and seek to kill them whenever possible. In the northeast, for example, Boko Haram was nearly successful in killing the Shehu of Borno, generally regarded as second only to the sultan in the traditional hierarchy that jihadis seek to destroy. Were Abuja to cooperate more closely with traditional rulers that command popular confidence, its confrontation with the jihadis could be more successful.

Pointblank News is reporting that the U.S. Departments of State and Justice are investigating Sabiu 'Tunde' Yusuf, Sarki Abba, Mamman Daura, Ismaila Isa Funtua, and his son Abubakar Funtua for money laundering in the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Most are members of Buhari's inner circle. Pointblank cites a figure of $800 million used to purchase real estate in the UK and the Gulf states. The U.S. investigation, according to Pointblank News, is being conducted in cooperation with the United Kingdom through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and the United Arab Emirates through the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which levies reporting requirements on, among others, foreign entities in which U.S. tax payers hold substantial ownership shares. But there should be no rush to judgement. It is rare for the Department of State or the Department of Justice to say that there is an investigation underway, and neither has done so publicly. Reporting by Pointblank News has been questioned in the past. On the other hand, Sabiu 'Tunde' Yusuf is known to be very rich, and Nigerian money laundering in the Gulf and the United Kingdom is an old song. President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have little personal interest in money, lives simply, and is rarely accused of personal corruption. But that his inner circle is corrupt is a widely held trope in southern Nigeria. The upper reaches of his administration is almost entirely made up of Muslims from the north, often with personal connections to the president. In a country where it is commonly believed that half of the population is Christian and half is Muslim, the overwhelmingly Muslim character of the Buhari government encourages those opposed to the president, especially among Christians in the south, to believe that his inner circle is corrupt.

Alvin Young is a Rangel Fellow and master's candidate at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. On March 20, Ghana's parliament passed the Narcotics Control Commission (NCC) bill in response to the dramatic growth in domestic drug consumption. The NCC treats illicit drug use as a public health crisis rather than strictly a law enforcement issue by decriminalizing certain narcotics and prioritizing treatment and rehabilitation for drug addicts. This is an important shift in Africa’s approach to combating the trade and use of illicit drugs. Initially, observers saw many African countries, including Ghana, as transit hubs for opioids and psychoactive substances destined for Europe and the United States. But times are changing. Researchers at the ENACT foundation, an EU-funded project to help combat transnational crime in Africa, estimate [PDF] that there will be an additional 14 million Africans using illegal drugs by 2050, reflecting a rapidly growing consumer market in Sub-Saharan Africa. These alarming projections, coupled with an African population expected to reach 2.5 billion people by 2050, will require that the African Union and its member states continue to create sustainable interventions such as the NCC that aim to reduce drug use and prioritize treatment, not criminalization.   In recent years, some East African countries have seen large consumer markets for illicit drugs develop similar to those in West Africa. Kenyan criminal networks that transport heroin to Western markets from the Port of Mombasa developed local markets with an estimated [PDF] 55,000 heroin users. Some reports claim that 3.5 percent of the population in Mombasa has tried heroin. Furthermore, the United Nations 2018 World Drug Report notes [PDF] that Kenyans between ages eighteen and twenty-four use cocaine, heroin, and prescription drugs at a rate three times higher than those aged thirty-six and older. In 2015, President Kenyatta declared war on drugs and called on security forces and politicians to lead the crackdown on the country’s growing drug ecosystem. But that likely will not be enough. CFR’s Senior Fellow Michelle Gavin argues that Africa’s growing illicit drug crisis will require a new focus on public health and education initiatives, in addition to improved law enforcement. Ghana’s parliament is taking a positive step in that direction.  Africa’s rising illicit drug use has not gone unnoticed by the African Union. To address the challenge, the African Union’s Plan of Action on Drug Control [PDF], or AUPA, highlighted the need to reduce illicit drug use on the continent through a greater emphasis on public health programs. However, most African policies to counter illicit drugs still prioritize prohibition and overlook the growing public health crisis. As local illegal drug markets continue to grow, it is not clear to what extent AU member states will implement the AUPA and other forward-thinking approaches. For now, African countries and their ministries of health are consumed with the coronavirus, but, illicit drug use has become and will remain an important public health issue. 

The extradition process enables governments to bring fugitives abroad to justice, but it can be fraught with political tension, even when a treaty is in place.

In August, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered closed Nigeria’s land border with Benin, preventing the import of goods. The move significantly affected trade in foodstuffs, which had already been affected by various past import restrictions. This recent move is part of an effort to tackle smuggling and associated corruption, but also to spur the domestic agricultural industry. On October 14, Nigeria ordered closed all of Nigeria’s borders with Benin, as well as those with all other countries, for the same reasons. With the market for smuggled food now restricted, domestic food prices—already high—have gone up and the economy of neighboring Benin—a staging area for smuggling into Nigeria—has been devastated. Imports into Nigeria are to come through sea ports, where customs duties can be imposed more easily than at land borders. Nigeria’s vital oil exports are not affected.  In conjunction with the announcement of additional border closures, Hameed Ali, comptroller general of the Nigerian Customs Services, announced that there is no timeline for reopening the borders, which will remained closed “until we have total control over what comes in.”  The increased rice smuggling, chiefly from Benin, likely stems from a long-running effort by President Buhari to increase domestic Nigerian food production and support Nigerian farmers. In June 2015, weeks after taking office, the Buhari government in effect restricted the import of rice in order to encourage Nigerian rice production. They did this in part by not providing favorable foreign exchange rates to would-be rice importers, making imported rice more expensive. While it is true that Nigerian rice production has since steadily increased, so have smuggling and the price of rice. (To an extent, the same is true for the price of other food products.) Soon after the restriction, rice imports to Benin skyrocketed. Many guess that would-be smugglers accounted for the increase of rice imports to Benin—now the world’s second-largest exporter of rice—to meet demand for rice in Nigeria, itself expected to be the world's largest buyer of rice. Nigeria’s borders reflect late-nineteenth century agreements among the British, French, and Germans. Most African borders were similarly created by European colonial powers. The point being, the borders rarely reflect indigenous history or culture. In the case of Nigeria, while there are formal border crossings with customs services along the main roads, there are literally hundreds of others along footpaths and minor roads that are unregulated. The practical consequences of closing the land borders is likely to vary from one part of the country to another, based on government capacity to enforce closures. Further complicating the decision, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Nigeria is a prominent member, is based on the principle of free movement of people, goods, and services. So, too, is the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, signed by fifty-four of fifty-five African countries—including Nigeria—and which went into effect in July 2019. The closure of Nigeria’s land borders is contrary to the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of those agreements. The Nigerian border closure episode highlights how difficult it will be to establish a real—rather than aspirational—Africa-wide free trade regime.

In August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicted eighty people for what it described as “the largest case of online fraud in U.S. history.” Seventy-seven of them were Nigerian. Separately, also indicted for computer and wire fraud was Obinwanne Okeke. He is accused of defrauding a subsidiary of Caterpillar of $11 million. Okeke was the head of Invictus Group, with interests in Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. Forbes magazine named him as one of its top African entrepreneurs under thrity in 2016. The arrests reportedly took place in Alexandria, Virginia, near one of the Washington, DC, airports as the accused was preparing to return to Nigeria.  The arrests appear to have attracted more attention in Nigeria than in the United States. Nigerian social media by and large does not question the alleged guilt of those arrested, attributing almost super-human qualities to the FBI. The concern appears to be the damage the arrests are causing the reputation of young Nigerian entrepreneurs and fears that it will become even more difficult to obtain a visa for the United States. There has also been soul-searching about the role played by online fraud in Nigeria. The BBC has published a thoughtful “Letter from Africa” by Nigerian novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, “Why Nigeria’s Internet Scammers Are ‘Role Models.’” She briefly reviews the history of fraud in Nigeria since the 1990s, and describes a “training school” in Lagos for scammers recently raided by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. She turns to why Nigerians so much admire fraudsters: “Scammers establish legitimate businesses from fraudulent funds, and become respected philanthropists or politicians in senior leadership position…many young Nigerians consider scamming a career path and a valid source of income.”  There is little question that Nigeria is damaged by its international reputation for fraud. It contributes to the reluctance of international investors to acquire Nigerian partners. On the other hand, Nigeria has a population of some 200 million people, most of whom are poor and struggling to make a living. They pay a price for the criminality of a small class of privileged people involved in fraud. Presidential Spokesman Garba Shehu summed it up: “It is a big scar on all of us who go out of this country and are seen in this image that these our brothers have created.” Those arrested will be tried in the United States. If convicted, some could face sentences of up to thirty years in jail.   

Barbara Creecy, South Africa’s Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Fisheries, announced on World Rhino Day a substantial decline in the poaching of South Africa’s rhinos. From January to June 2019, 318 were poached, compared to 386 during the same period last year. South Africa has up to 80 percent of the global population of twenty thousand rhinoceroses. Organized criminal syndicates poach rhinos to meet the Asian demand for rhino horn, believed to be an aphrodisiac. (It’s not!) There is an international ban on the rhino horn trade. Creecy said the decline in rhino poaching reflected efforts to involve in conservation efforts those that live on the borders of parks in order to reduce their recruitment by such syndicates. She also cited tougher court prosecutions and new strategies, such as the use of sniffer dogs, to detect rhino horns. Creecy optimism is well-placed. The Ramaphosa administration understands the importance of tourism to the South African economy. Along with the political will, South Africa has the bureaucratic and technical strengths to confront international syndicates involved in the trade. Other countries may lack such capacity, and therefore must rely on more controversial methods to address poaching. Still, 318 poached rhinos is too high. In South Africa, as elsewhere, involving local people in conservation efforts is necessary to fighting poaching, as Creecy freely acknowledges.  

Zakari Oumoru, the governor of the Maradi in Niger hosted a cross-border meeting in Niger with the Nigerian governors of bordering Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara states to focus on cross-border crime, particularly banditry, kidnapping, and cattle rustling. The governors of the four states signed a memorandum of understanding, the text of which has not yet been carried in the Nigerian media. However, it reportedly pledges closer cooperation against cross-border crime. Also present were representatives of the Nigerian security services based in the three Nigerian states.  The governor of Sokoto is Aminu Tambuwal, the governor of Katsina is Aminu Masari, and the governor of Zamfara is Bello Matawalle. Tambuwal and Matawalle ran on the ticket of the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP), while Masari ran on the ticket of President Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC). Cooperation at the national level between Anglophone Nigeria and its francophone neighbors has long been difficult, but not impossible. At the state level, cooperation may be easier and more productive. The border between northern Nigeria and Niger is mostly a line on a map drawn-up by the British and the French during the colonial era. In many or most areas, the same people live on either side, and there are a large number of informal and unregulated crossing points.  Central governments are often less than enthusiastic about international cooperation negotiated at the state level because it can undermine central authority. However, the presence of Nigerian security service representatives indicates that Abuja did not necessarily object, and may even have supported, the initiative of the Maradi governor.

The organizational features commonly found in the online criminal underground look a lot like traditional business structures, with organizational heads, line managers, and front-line staff.