Uncovering the Italian mafia in Africa

 The Italian mafia has established a hidden but lethal presence in Africa. Its members own diamond mines, nightclubs and land, all with the complicity of corrupt regimes. 

  if you want to fight the mafia, you also need to fight the corruption existing in the political sphere.


The Italian mafia’s influence goes beyond borders; its multiple arms reach several countries and exploit several lucrative sectors. Well-known criminal groups like the Sicilian Cosa Nostra have been investigated for decades, but the recently published project Mafia in Africa uncovers for the first time the actual scope of the mafia’s economic power on the African continent. The team found that important members of the mafia, so-called “capos”, engage in money laundering activities and invest in land, mines or farms in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and other countries. The same people also establish useful associations with relevant politicians and thus fuel the dynamics of corrupted regimes and unstable markets.
Working on the crossroads between investigative and data journalism, the international team behind the project researched the mafia’s activities in thirteen different countries. Their stories were published in CORRECT!V, L’Espresso, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Mail&Guardian among others. Ultimately, their aim was to show the need to fight the mafia’s criminal practices worldwide.
In order to know more about their investigation and final output, we interviewed our grantee Stefano Gurciullo, director of Quattrogatti.info and the data scientist and coordinator of the project.

What were the main goals of such an ambitious project?
The goal of the project was to find out how and in what sectors and countries the Italian mafia invests. Our investigation does not deal with drug profits, prostitution or weapons, we only deal with money laundering and financial activities. The importance of this project for us was not to just launch a nice investigative project but to spread a message: “this is happening out there, it is huge and we do not know much about it.” We want to convince the public and policy makers to start taking measures against economic infiltration of the mafia. Once we achieve this, we can say that our project has succeeded.

In the project you employ investigative and data journalism. What did you get from this combination?
Using both techniques was not an easy task, but it was very useful. Investigative journalism is usually concerned with the narrative, while data journalism primarily deals with providing the readers a bigger picture. Investigative journalism allows you to discover new data, and the data scientist can create databases and do the quantitative analysis on it. We are really happy to be an example of this.

The most telling of your case studies was South Africa. Could you briefly explain what you uncovered there?
In South Africa we focused on the stories of two Sicilian hustlers, Vito Roberto Palazzolo and Antonino Messicati Vitale. Two well-known cases, but we gave the full picture with in-depth information and big data. In the case of Vito Roberto Palazzolo we did something amazing: we managed to track a huge part of the network of companies he and his collaborators have owned in South Africa, Namibia and Angola over the past 20 years. We essentially tracked nearly his entire economical empire. The story we published is a summary of this. His economic activities were very wide; they went from ostrich farms to uranium mining. We also found that he had connections with important political actors, like the son of the first Namibian president since the independence of the country. The other story in South Africa is about Antonino Messicati Vitale, a powerful boss of the Sicilian mafia, who invested in the diamond mining industry.

After months of research and analysis, you published several long-forms paired with big and detailed infographics. What is their function?
Finding a good way to represent what we discovered was very important to us. For example, we created a map of Africa, which summarises nine months of work in just one image. In a few lines it explains our main findings. The reader can first see the big picture and then decide what story he or she wants to delve into. Our infographics make the story easily accessible.
Another example is the network that depicts Palazzolo’s huge economic empire. Again, in one graphic, you can easily see how big his influence was. This is twenty pages of story summed up in just one graph.
What are the consequences of the mafia’s economic infiltration and money laundering practices in Africa?
There are two direct consequences, one is political and the other economic. What we found out was that the Italian mafia strengthened the Politics of the Belly in Africa—a form of political governance characterised by self-aggrandisement. The mafia come as outsiders, but they have friends across the African political spectrum, which allows them to take part in high-level corrupted politics that exist in many African countries. We saw this very clearly with Vito Roberto Palazzolo, but we did not have enough resources to go more in-depth.
Another consequence is that if you have a lot of money coming from illegal funds and you decide to enter a legitimate market, this is unfair towards the other competitors. Unlike the mafia, these competitors do not engage in illegal activities. This situation just as much distorts the market as it dismantles innovation.

Did you receive any kind or pressure from actors somehow involved in the criminal network during the investigation?
We have been very careful. Minimising risk in the field means making sure to follow some protocols, such as keeping your project goals reasonably confidential and following the indications of your local colleagues, who know very well what threats might lie ahead.
We are happy to say that we did not receive any significant pressure from the actors involved. However, there always is the chance that this may change soon, as we start engaging closely with policy makers and bring the issue of financial and economic crime higher up in their agendas. We do not know what form this pressure might take. It may range from personal threats to lawsuits.

You wrote that this first project was like discovering the tip of the iceberg. What do you plan to do next?
This was only the first step. It is part of a broader project through which we encourage policymakers to pay attention to the mafia’s global business. If we get enough funding, the next step will be to find reliable information to track the mafia’s practices in other countries, also outside of Africa. Africa is just one part of the story. For instance, we also found connections between Vito Roberto Palazzolo and the biggest diamond mining in Russia. Few people knew about it before. It would be really interesting to conduct the same research we did on the African continent in Asia, the Caucasus area or Latin America, for example.

What was the most surprising finding for you?
I think that each team member would give you a different answer. To me, the most striking thing was the value of the diamond deposit Vito Roberto Palazzolo had in Russia. The total value of them was 12 billion dollars. Palazzolo, together with another entrepreneur owned 17%. He also had diamond mines in Namibia. I was really shocked that they had control over these huge sources of money.
The second surprising finding was to see, with my own eyes, how well connected these people were with very important political figures, how they always had a partnership with whoever was in power, especially in Namibia. This fact gave us the confirmation that if you want to fight the mafia, you also
  need to fight the corruption existing in the political sphere.

 The Italian mafia has established a hidden but lethal presence in Africa. Its members own diamond mines, nightclubs and land, all with the complicity of corrupt regimes.


Italian anti-mafia authorities estimate that organised crime groups earn €26 billion a year in Italy alone. But the figure only scratches the surface of its economic power. Mafia Inc. is more than ever a global business, infiltrating legitimate economies worldwide. And the extent of the empire is unknown.
An international team of reporters from the non-profit investigative journalism centres IRPI and ANCIR (with the Investigative Dashboard Africa) partnered with the data analysts of QUATTROGATTI and the production room of CORRECT!V to uncover for the first time the Italian mafia's grip on Africa.

Supported by two working grants for independent journalism, the Innovative Journalism Grant of the EJC and Journalism Fund, the work took seven months, and included trips to Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Lombardy, in Italy and South Africa, Namibia, Senegal and Kenya, in Africa.
Ten investigative reporters from six different countries, one data-journalist and a data-scientist, three editors, one cross-examiner and a bunch of lawyers joined the effort in producing in-depth research into the mafia's involvement in 13 countries.
Mafia in Africa draws a bleak picture and highlights the need for the international community to reforms its policies, to monitor and fight the economic infiltration by criminals and prevent the dire consequences on unstable African societies.

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DR Congo’s would-be president,Moïse Katumbi

“The same people who betrayed Mobutu are now with Kabila, telling him he’s God, telling him he’s whatever. It’s bullshit.”

 

Moïse Katumbi:credit NYUMBA

 

For a man many see as the natural heir to the presidency of the vast and populous Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Moïse Katumbi cuts a fairly reserved figure. A gentle and sometimes bashful tycoon-turned-politician, one gets the sense that if he were his biblical namesake, his instinct would be to strike a behind-the-scenes deal with the Red Sea rather than command it to part with a booming authority.
Whatever his approach, however, it has put him in good stead. The son of a Jewish father from Greece and a Congolese mother, Katumbi, now a youthful 52,  first made his mark in business. He inherited a role in the already-successful family company in Katanga province, but expanded its activities in mining and logistics. All of which helped make him one of the Congo’s richest people.
From 2007 to 2015, he was  governor of Katanga, which saw impressive economic growth and development. Under his presidency of the Lubumbashi football team TP Mazembe, the club has won the African Champions League three times.
Now Katumbi wants to be president of the country. If free and fair elections were held, he probably would be. He has significant popularity and the support of much of the opposition. But when he’ll get a chance to test this hypothesis is anyone’s guess.
President Joseph Kabila, who has led the DRC since 2001, was meant to step down when his second mandated term expired on 19 December 2016. But he simply failed to organise elections. Protests escalated until an agreement was made on 31 December that a transitional government would be established − with Kabila still as president − and that elections would be held in 2017. Yet more than halfway through the year, the polls are no closer and the electoral commission recently announced that they have been delayed indefinitely.
Moreover, in 2016, Katumbi was sentenced to 36 months in absentia for selling a property illegally. The charges are widely considered to be politically-motivated, but they mean he is stuck in exile in Brussels.
African Arguments caught up with the wannabe Congolese president:

You’ve said repeatedly now that you’ll be returning to the DRC shortly. Do you know when yet?
  I’m going as quick as possible. I went with my lawyer to the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and got a good answer, so I’m definitely going back. I miss my country and my people.

Do you have a date?
The date is soon. I’m like a general. I need to plan everything properly.
You have much support in the DRC, but many also distrust you, including various grassroots movements that are doing much of the mobilising on the ground today. They see you as someone who’s always lived in luxury, eating at expensive restaurants and flying in private jets, while two-thirds of Congolese live in poverty. Why should they believe in you?
In a democracy, not everyone will love you. The majority would like me to run as president. I was first a businessman. 95-97% know the true story about Moïse Katumbi. I was a hardworking person, 30 years in business, a successful businessman. I didn’t go bankrupt.
When I started as governor of Katanga, the province was sending $150 million to the national level per annum. After one year, it went to $3 billion because I fought corruption. When I am president, all the people will see the change. They can look on my website, they can talk to Katangese people to see my contribution.

How will you convince the doubters?
Kabila is attacking me – only me – because he knows in the first round I will win the elections. When I arrived as governor of Katanga, Congo was producing just 8,000 tonnes of copper per annum. I stopped exports of unprocessed material and told people to build new factories. We went from 8,000 tonnes to 1.3 million tonnes.  My province was the size of France, with 4.5 million people. Within one year, the population doubled as people came from their provinces to look for good governance and jobs.

You criticise Kabila now, but you were very close to him for many years. How are substantively different from him? What specific policy changes would you make if you were president tomorrow?
I can’t deny I worked with Kabila. The constitution allowed me two terms, which I did. President Kabila today is illegal. He finished his mandate in 2016. The difference between us first is that I respected the constitution. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t jail anyone.
What is important is the future. I would first establish the authority of government and law. I’d fight corruption. Create jobs. We need to have a strong economy. How? First, you need energy. Congo has a lot of water and no energy. I would call the private sector and all partners to help us and use money you have locally to improve energy.
You need to create the middle-class. Also transparency, which is very important in the mining sector and all sectors. You’ve got the best place for tourism. You have to develop this. And develop education. The future of Congo is not mining but the brains of our young people. And develop agriculture. At the moment, our money is going to other countries for imports. We need to create jobs in agriculture. And the money must go to the central government and be published. You must not violate the budget. The president is going over the budget sometimes by 700%.

Surely everyone, including Kabila, would largely agree that all these things are important. What specifically would you do?
What I say is that I’ve done it when I was the governor. It’s not just theory. Take education. When I started, we had 300,000 students at school and less than 10% were girls. I built good infrastructure and paid teachers well. We went to over 3 million children after 9 years, 50% of whom were girls. When I began, we were importing 98% of our agriculture. When I left office, we were importing 25%, because I put everyone to work on agriculture.

The main difference you emphasise between you and Kabila seems to be that he violated the constitution. If he’d stepped down last year, would he have been a good president?
Kabila missed the train. He was supposed to leave on time, not kill the people. If he left, the international community and Congolese would be happy. No matter what he did wrong, people would respect him as the first president to bring democracy.
He did good things, he did bad things. Now everything has become very bad because of the killing.

From Kabila’s perspective, his strategies have worked. The elections are no closer, while the opposition’s divided. Veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has passed away. You’re in exile. And the wealthy businessman and recent critic of Kabila, Sindika Dokolo, has just been sentenced to a year in prison. What’s your plan to change things?
These are short manoeuvres. You think Sindika Dokolo can steal $1 million? His father was the first black banker in the country. Because Dokolo is telling Kabila to step down, the president’s only strategy is to take him down with fake charges, like he did with me. He thinks this is successful, but this is a short road.

And how will you bring that road to an end?
We are bringing it to an end because our constitution gives us the right to remove him. At the moment, he doesn’t have any legal frame. The people are going to chase Kabila because Article 64 of our constitution allows us. We’re going to say “Mr President, the game is over”. In life, you have to always be true. You can’t be clever to more than 80 million people. The end is sure to come this year. Kabila will no longer be president.

Yes, but how will you bring this about? At the moment, he seems to hold all the cards.
Killings is not a card, killing is evil.
But it helps keep him in power.
It works for some time. You have read widely. All the people who killed, what is their end? Their end is very bad.

Perhaps, but sometimes only after decades of rule.
For us, it is not going to take decades. Congo is not other countries. 80 million people need change. Kabila should wake up.

Ok, so would you encourage people to go onto the streets to force this change?
Yes. I’m also going on the streets and will encourage the people, because today people are dying and no serious investors have come to the country since 2016.

Going back to Dokolo, there are rumours the two of you are forming a political alliance. Is this true?
Sindika is a Congolese brother first. He’s a businessman and just inaugurated a cement factory in Angola. He works hard. He wants to contribute to change in Congo. You see how they are killing pregnant women and children in the Kasai. Sindika wants change in the country like any Congolese person.

Given you share that goal, does it make sense to join forces?
Not just the two of us. I was with Sidika Dokolo and Félix Tshisekedi. It’s all the Congolese people, civil society, everyone. We need real change. Congolese people today are determined. I have met a lot of Congolese children born in Europe who want to go back and contribute.

Before you resigned from the ruling coalition, you talked to President Kabila. He offered you something, but you declined. What happened in that meeting?
I went to see the president to tell him “Mr President, in life there is a time to come to office and a time to go”. I said Congo is not about you, it’s about 80 million people. It’s not about Moïse Katumbi, it’s about the people.
I advised him not to continue, but to have the first peaceful democratic transition. The same people who betrayed Mobutu are now with Kabila, telling him he’s God, telling him he’s whatever. It’s bullshit. He should look at how Mobutu was finished because the people of Congo at that time needed change.

This interview has been condensed and edited.