Narco Nigerians

Ruthless and organised, Nigerians have become the biggest players in India's market for hard narcotics

Sandeep Unnithan and Bhavna Vij-Aurora November 22, 2013 | UPDATED 12:29 IST

On the night of October 30, five unidentified persons hacked Obado Uzomo Simeon to death. The murder of the 30-year-old Nigerian national in Parra village, just five km away from Goa's Anjuna Beach, was exceptionally brutal. It was, in true gangland style, a murder with a message. The short and thickset Simeon, who sported a French beard, bright-red Tommy Hilfiger hoodie and grey sweatpants, had arrived in India on a business visa six months ago. He was chased and hacked with sharp-edged weapons. The assailants severed his right hand and his spinal column before leaving his blood-soaked body on a road. Police say Simeon was murdered by rivals from Indian drug gangs bristling at the new group of interlopers threatening their lucrative trade: Slipping drugs into the palms of an estimated three million tourists every year who flock to the beach shacks of Calangute and the heaving, smoke-filled nightclubs on the neon-lit Baga Beach Road.

The intruders are ruthless, enterprising, operate in close-knit groups and, according to a Goa police officer, not afraid to risk selling drugs to anyone with enough cash. All of them are from a single West African nation-Nigeria. There are just 19 Nigerians on the rolls of Goa's Foreigners Registration Office but more than 200 of them live illegally or have overstayed their visa. They rent rooms in north Goa, the epicentre of the drug retail business, a bike ride away from scenic tourist beaches such as Anjuna, Baga and Calangute. "Ninety per cent of them are involved in the drug business," an Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) policeman says.

Since 2010, 22 Nigerians have been arrested in Goa on charges of drug trafficking, the largest in a group of 89 foreigners arrested for such offences. A day after Simeon's death, 53 Nigerians faced off with the police, held up Goa's NH-17 by throwing the body of their murdered comrade on the road and caused a diplomatic row. A recent Headlines Today sting had one inspector confessing they were "scared" to nab Nigerians. Over the past few years, Nigerian dealers have captured a large chunk of Goa's lucrative trade in the high-value drugs-methaqualone, cocaine and heroin.

The Rise of the Nigerians

An up-and-coming Indian drug trafficker today is most likely a Nigerian-plugged into global smuggling networks that carry the white powder from South America and deliver it at the doorstep of Indian consumers half-way across the globe; fluent in more than one of the three Nigerian languages-Ibo, Housa and Yoruba; and a frequent visitor to India as a student or a cloth trader, which allows him to blend into a diaspora of an estimated 50,000 Nigerians, many of whom stay legitimately as students and businessmen. Goa's cocaine coast is only one of his many haunts. In recent months, Nigerian peddlers have hawked namak (salt, Hindi slang for cocaine) in places such as Chandigarh, another fast-emerging cocaine consumption centre.

Punjab Police busted two gangs of cocaine peddlers, one in December last year and the other in March this year, both led by Nigerians. In Mumbai, Nigerian peddlers operate from ramshackle buildings in out-of-sight suburbs such as Naigaon in Thane district, or out of seedy lodges in Dongri, downtown Mumbai. From here, they feed the city's party circuit with a buffet of methamphetamine, cocaine and lsd.

"Nigerians were small fry on Mumbai's streets, but in the past two years they have taken over the city's drug trade," says Dr Yusuf Merchant, who runs the Drug Abuse Information Rehabilitation and Research Centre in South Mumbai.

"Over the past year, we have seen a concerted attempt by African nationals, including Nigerians, to push hard drugs such as cocaine into India," says Rajiv Mehta, director general of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the nodal agency in India's war on drugs. It says Nigerians now make up roughly a fourth of all foreigners involved in the drug trade.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) estimates that the Nigerians control 60 per cent of India's drug trade. Women, they say, are an intrinsic part of their network. Many of them marry Indian women to use bank accounts or facilitate their stay in India.

Nearly half the foreign nationals-136 out of 375 people-detained in India's largest prison, Delhi's Tihar, are Nigerians. Most are in for drug-related offences.

Figures of the total worth of India's narcotics trade are hard to obtain. Last year, various Indian law enforcement agencies seized one tonne of heroin, 4.3 tonnes of ephedrine, 44 kg of cocaine and 30 kg of amphetamine. "These seizures in India are only the tip of the iceberg," says one narcotics control officer. "How big the iceberg is, we don't know."

In April this year, the Delhi Police Special Cell and ib made an unusual arrest: Olatide Morrison and his wife Deborah Olatide and four other Nigerian nationals from north-western Delhi's Tilak Nagar. Olatide, 55, bald and clean shaven, was a pastor who ran a network of churches in Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana and exported garments to North America and Europe. He was assisted by his wife Deborah, 47, an impeccably dressed lady who wore her straightened hair in a stylish bob. Raids on their homes and offices discovered they were the masterminds of a drug-trafficking network. ncb officials say that Nigerians now dominate both the wholesale and retail trade in hard drugs.

Police officials say Nigerians are aggressive businessmen and undeterred by arrest. The police have been unable to penetrate the Nigerian drug gangs who have links with global cartels. This is one reason why ncb frequently works with the US Drug Enforcement Agency for information on drug shipments. There are an estimated 5,000 Nigerians illegally living in India. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) deported 500 Nigerians this year, but officials say many deported Nigerians are known to have returned with new identities.

The Discovery of India

The UNODC's World Drug Report of 2013 warns that the global cocaine market is expanding towards the emerging economies in Asia. Recent arrests in India seem to be indicate this trend. On October 1, ncb officials seized 8.4 kg of cocaine worth over Rs.5 crore hidden in the false compartments of a 31-year-old 'cloth trader' Chidibere Kingsley Nwanchra. He had flown into Delhi from Mexico via Lagos and Dubai.

Cocaine supply into India has increased and there has been a spike in seizures. Last year, various law-enforcement agencies seized 44 kg, up from 14 kg seized in 2011. A single seizure of 16.8 kg from three Nigerians last September was worth nearly Rs.10 crore.

These seizures, however, are only a tiny fraction of the white powder that enters India. Cocaine is now within easy reach of India's affluent middle class, as easily available to a call centre executive as it is to a Bollywood star son. From Rs.7,000 a gram a decade ago, prices of cocaine have dropped to between Rs.3,000 to Rs.4,000 per gram. "Petrol and vegetable prices have increased, the dollar has strengthened, but cocaine prices have actually dropped," laughs 'Vicky', a police informer in Mumbai. The drop in cocaine prices is a result of increased supply by the Nigerians. "Cocaine consumption has picked up in Indian metros due to availability and affordability," says Pushpita Das, a research scholar who looks at narcotics-related issues at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, Delhi.

GOA'S POLITICO-CRIMINAL NEXUS

On October 17, the Goa Assembly warily regarded a 125-page report on the police-drug mafia links. The committee, headed by Independent MLA Francisco Xavier Pacheco, which was set up by the Manohar Parrikar government to investigate allegations of a police-mafia nexus, concluded that former home minister Ravi Naik turned a blind eye to his son Roy's involvement in the drug trade. The report, yet to be accepted by the government, is a damning indictment of Goa's worst-kept secret-a police-criminal-politico nexus that allows drugs to be freely traded. A fortnight after the Nigerian national's murder, police suspended Jitendra Kambli, an ANC constable, for tipping off an Indian drug gang about police movements. In 2010, a senior ANC officer was imprisoned for selling 25 kg of confiscated hashish back to Israeli drug peddlers.

A PROBLEM OF ENFORCEMENT

In August this year, residents of Uttam Nagar, a sleepy western Delhi suburb, were stunned by the sight of two Nigerians holding a 10-man NCB raiding party at bay. The Nigerians blocked a narrow flight of stairs and rained kicks and punches while three other gang members fled, one leapt off the three-storeyed building onto a nearby rooftop, another broke his fall by hanging off electric cables. The gang was hawking locally manufactured methamphetamine in Delhi. ncb recovered 500 grams of the substance from the third-floor flat and arrested two of the pushers. One ncb officer calls west Delhi the Capital's new drug zone for a number of drug-related arrests made from there in recent months.

Sources say the Government is aware of the Nigerian drug problem in India but careful not to upset relations between the two countries. Nigeria is India's sixth-largest oil supplier and second-largest trading partner with annual bilateral trade turnover of over $17.3 billion.

"Economic relations and criminality must be delinked," says former diplomat K.C. Singh. "The Government must act against criminals and not get blackmailed." Nigerian High Commission officials did not return India Today's calls for comment.

MHA officials say Nigeria continues to remain in the Prior Reference Category countries for grant of Indian visa, just like Pakistan. The Indian High Commission in Nigeria has to refer all visa cases to IB for verification before granting any visa. Mahesh Kumar, India's former high commissioner to Lagos, says he wrote to mha to relax visa norms to facilitate business visitors. "At one point, the home ministry was considering the demand, but now, it seems unlikely it will happen," an IB official says. Undeterred by such scrutiny, the Nigerian drug gangs continue to ply their lethal trade across the country in ingenious ways.

Follow the writers on Twitter @SandeepUnnithan and @BhavnaVij

Caught in the Crossfire

Sandeep Unnithan Muzaffarnagar, November 1, 2013 | UPDATED 15:14 IST

The men who torched and looted Rozuddin's home came screaming slogans: "Pakistan ya Kabristan". The mason from Kharad fled into a nearby forest with his extended family of parents, two brothers, their wives and children.
Now, Rozuddin, 45, who has taken shelter in a madrasa in Shamli, seethes at claims of cross-border conspiracies and the new political game over riot victims in Muzaffarnagar.
"Neta rajneetik roti sekh rahein hain (Leaders are making political capital out of our plight)," he says, dismissing Rahul Gandhi's claim at his October 25 rally in Indore that Pakistan's ISI had contacted riot-affected people in Muzaffarnagar. His statement invited an instant retort from BJP's Narendra Modi, who asked the Congress vice-president to name such persons or apologise for defaming the community.

Rozuddin's family at madrasa Imdadiya Rashidiya in Shamli. Rozuddin, 45, is a mason from kharad village.

Sixty-two people died in Uttar Pradesh's worst spell of communal violence in two decades when riots broke out between Hindu Jats and Muslims in five districts in September. Three persons were killed in a fresh spurt of violence in Muzaffarnagar on October 30, three weeks after the Army quelled the riots. Intelligence Bureau officials say Rahul's claim of being told by sleuths that ISI is reaching out to riot victims is "absolutely untrue". "To say riot-hit people are in touch with isi is like rubbing salt into their wounds," says a senior official.
More than 50,000 Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Saharanpur, Baghpat and Meerut districts fled after fellow villagers turned on them. The ones who couldn't keep up were killed. "I wish the politicians would leave us alone," says Raesuddin, 40, of Lisad village, who saw his septuagenarian father Karmuddin being hacked to death. "He was one of five people killed that morning," says the farm labourer who is now sheltered in a madrasa in Kandhla.
Many people have since trickled back but Rozuddin, Raesuddin and others from the six worst-affected villages-the government calls them 'category 4' villages-continue to live in schools, madrasas and in plastic-roofed tents on Eidgah grounds across three districts. On October 17, the UP government told the Supreme Court that 17,000 people were in such camps, about 8,000 of them in 41 camps in Muzaffarnagar.

Mohammed Meherban's family at madrasa Imdadiya Rashidiya in Shamli. Mohammed Meherban, 26, is a labourer from Lakh village.

District authorities say the camps are emptying out. "Most villagers have started returning to their homes after Eid," Kaushal Raj Sharma, district magistrate, Muzaffarnagar, told india today. On October 27, the state government announced compensation of Rs.5 lakh each to 1,800 families directly affected by the riots. "We will ensure that they are resettled before the onset of winter," Sharma said.
Haji Zahoor Hasan, Samajwadi Party's general secretary in Shamli, confirms that "villagers are leaving camps". "But they are not going back to their villages. They are renting houses or moving in with relatives."
Many, however, are staying. "Mel phat gaya hain (Unity has been broken)," says Mahar Din, 63, formerly the watchman of Munbhar, explaining why he prefers the safety of a madrasa in Muzaffarnagar to the village of his forefathers. "I used to guard the Jat villagers' homes for 35 years, you know," he says, "and then, that morning, they looted and ransacked my house, forcing us to flee."
The administration, worried at the electoral impact of such a displacement, has stepped up pressure on the refugees to go back. District magistrates of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Baghpat have visited camps with police officials to coax them with promises of setting up police posts in every affected village. One social worker in Shamli turns on the speaker of his phone as he converses with a senior police officer. "We want all people in your camps to go back," the officer says earnestly, "but I won't ask villagers of Lakh, Lisad, Kutba, Kutbi, Jauli, Phogana and Bavdi to return." These are the villages that saw the worst riots. Parts of Phogana have turned into a ghost village. Stray dogs dart in and out of their new abodes: Over 100 brick houses, their wooden doors broken. The narrow lanes are littered with footwear and empty, broken suitcases. Soot licks the red walls and fans hang limply from ceilings like wilted flowers.

Mahar Din, 63, watchman of Munbhar village, Muzaffarnagar

"To tell you the truth, the village is not quite the same without them," says Himanshu, 12. "It's too quiet, all the friends I played cricket with are gone." The rioters who torched these houses, forcing an estimated 5,000 villagers to flee, were not deterred by the police station just 10 feet away. The station in-charge, who did nothing to prevent the orgy of loot and arson, was transferred shortly after the riots, but people say their faith in the police has been shaken.
The government has responded by setting up a Special Investigation Cell (SIC). The cell, comprising policemen from districts such as Bareilly and Agra, will probe all riot-related cases. SIC teams of five have fanned out in the camps, recording cases against rioters and videographing eyewitnesses. The police have so far registered 128 firs in five districts, booked 1,068 accused rioters and arrested 243. The police have promised justice to the victims but they are being slowed down by Jat villagers. Refugees in the camps say the police are only making excuses for their tardy progress. "The police promised action on my fir in three days," says Rozuddin. "It's been over 30 days but the men who burned our homes continue to roam free."
The FIRs are another reason why people like Rozuddin and Mahar Din can't go back. The refugees say they are being pressurised, through phone calls and emissaries of Jat villagers, to withdraw the firs. Some had to go with police escort to salvage what was left of their property. "The deal is clear," says Mohammed Meherban, a daily wager, "you can return only if you take the cases back."
There are economic reasons at play as well. A sugarcane crop is now being harvested in UP's sugar bowl, where Jats are landowners and Muslims labourers. Some people like Jameel claim Jats have laid down conditions for their return: They can't grow a beard, call for prayers, observe fasts or allow visits by preachers of the radical Tablighi Jamaat.
It is, meanwhile, a squalid existence for the refugees in camps and madrasas. At Madrasa Imdadiya Rashidiya in Shamli, 674 villagers share two toilets and one bathroom. At Madrasa Islamiya in Kandhla, 2,390 villagers use a dozen toilets. And flies cover the 32 infants born here in past month. Most aid trickles in from minority-run organisations. A week after Bakri Eid, an organisation from Kerala distributed 450 relief kits-two blankets, a bucket, milk powder, glasses, plates-among refugees at Kandhla. There is a distinct nip in the evening air as the refugees queue up. Soon, they know, they may have to make a choice: Between a harsh winter and a chilly reception in their old villages.

SandBastion

Friday, 22 November 2013

Narco Nigerians

Narco Nigerians

Friday, 1 November 2013

Muzaffarnagar riot victims-- caught in the crossfire

Caught in the Crossfire