Berlin immigration authorities embroiled in Nigerian EU migration scam

Westmonster

Berlin immigration authorities have been caught up in a scam involving EU spousal visas and illegal Nigerian migrants, which has made abuse of the system possible for years.

According to a Radio Berlin investigation, a gang of smugglers would charge migrants up to €13,000 in return for a virtually guaranteed EU residency card, by posing as a married couple with a Portuguese woman the gang would supply.

One Portuguese woman who was part of the scam reportedly had seven aliases she used to pose as the wife of the newly arrived Nigerian.

According to investigators, immigration officers fell for the forged marriage certificates, despite a warning from the government not to trust documents from Nigeria.

A junior immigration official told Radio Berlin that they became suspicious at the high number of Nigerian-Portuguese ‘couples’ obtaining residency cards and alerted their superiors.

“The suspicion that something is wrong with these applications has been stated on several occasions and also forwarded to superiors, but nothing has happened.”

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No oil, no ‘protection’? Boko Haram massacre in Nigeria sees little reaction from US

RT

Boko Haram has massacred thousands of civilians in Nigeria, but US officials' response towards the horrific crimes have been strangely muted. RT’s Manila Chan explores a potential link to oil, which the US no longer receives from Nigeria.

To many, the lack of Washington's strive to aid the people of Nigeria – the biggest African economy – seems to follow simple geostrategic logic: no oil, no security support. While diverting funds to fight the Islamic State in Iraq, the US seems unwilling to address Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria.
 
READ MORE: Satellite images reveal ‘horrific’ scale of Boko Haram attack in Nigeria
 
As US is trying to master shale gas exploitation; it has moved away from some of its traditional trade partners, with Nigeria – an OPEC-member state – becoming the first country to stop selling oil to the US, statistics from the US Department of Energy reveal. Nigeria was one of the top five suppliers to the US at the height of trade, less than a decade ago supplying it with 1.3 million barrels of oil every day. 


Yet despite Boko Haram’s territorial gains and promising outlook for jihadi domination of the whole region, the US – and the world – focuses on terror attacks in Europe and IS advances, completely neglecting the imminent threat stemming from the Nigerian terrorist network. 

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The Truth About Boko Haram & #BringBackOurGirls

Fate of 100 Nigerian Schoolgirls Seized by Islamist Terrorists Unknown

CNS News

The whereabouts of around 100 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram on Monday remain unknown, after the military was forced on Thursday to retract an earlier statement that most had been released.

The retraction drew an angry response from parents of the missing teens, and according to Nigerian media reports some parents have now resorted to launch a search themselves in a forested area where Boko Haram is known to have hideouts.

The embarrassing reversal by the military’s spokesman is yet another setback in its campaign against the terrorists. Last May President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northern states, granting armed forces sweeping powers and vowing to “win this war against terror.”

Almost a year on, however, the situation looks more dire than ever. The first few months of 2014 have witnessed more than 1,500 deaths, making this year already the deadliest yet in Boko Haram’s jihad, which began escalating in 2009.

The seizure of 129 secondary schoolgirls occurred in Borno, one of the three state of emergency states, just hours after a bombing, also blamed on Boko Haram, killed 75 people in the capital, Abuja – the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the city.

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Spanish police arrest 25 in 'Nigeria sex-trafficking ring'

 

 More than 100 vans were also seized, filled with high-end goods

BBC News

Spanish police say they have arrested 25 people in a sex-trafficking ring that brought women from Nigeria to work as prostitutes.

The women, allegedly lured with the promise of good jobs in Europe, were first flown to Mexico or Brazil, travelling on false identity documents.

From there, they were flown to Paris, then smuggled into Spain to work in the sex trade, police say. Five women who were victims of the sex ring were freed in the raids. 

Police found one member of the gang performing an abortion on one of the five women, reports the BBC's Madrid correspondent, Tom Burridge.

Hidden goods
 
Arrests were made across Spain - in Madrid, Toledo, Cantabria and Palma de Mallorca.

More than 100 vans concealing luxury goods were also seized.

The gang used the vans to launder their profits and send them back to Lagos, police say.
The vans, with dark-tinted windows and welded doors, were stocked full of beer but had luxury items hidden deeper inside. 

Goods worth an estimated 5m euros (£4.1m; $6.6m) were found in 94 vans seized in Madrid and another 26 in the port of Valencia, including high-end televisions and cases of alcohol.

Police say the gang was formed more than 20 years ago in Nigerian universities and was also known for sending so-called Nigerian letters by email, asking recipients to send money.

Eight of the 25 people arrested were in Spain illegally, they say.

Niger Delta villagers go to the Hague to fight against oil giant Shell

Guardian

This once self-sufficient community suffered from the excesses of oil firms and corrupt officials. Now, the villagers are blamed for everything and the arms dealers are having a field day

Goi is now a dead village. The two fish ponds, bakery and chicken farm that used to be the pride and joy of its chief deacon, Barrisa Tete Dooh, lie abandoned, covered in a thick black layer. The village's fishing creek is contaminated; the school has been looted; the mangrove forests are coated in bitumen and everyone has left, refugees from a place blighted by the exploitation of the region's most valuable asset: crude oil.

Last Thursday, a long-awaited and comprehensive UN study exposed the full horror of the pollution that the production of oil has brought to Ogoniland over the last 50 years.

The UN report showed that oil companies and the Nigerian government had not just failed to meet their own standards, but that the process of investigation, reporting and clean-up was deeply flawed in favour of the firms and against the victims. Spills in the US are responded to in minutes; in the Niger delta, which suffers more pollution each year than the Gulf of Mexico, it can take companies weeks or more. [...]