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in the plates and everything and the car, as a scrap metal, is loaded into acontainer” (Questura of Turin).Not be excluded are other uses linked to particular interests or needs, but this ismore opaque. In a penal case, which dates to the period when there was still amilitary dictatorship in Nigeria, confidential information was gathered 69 : part of themoney gained from the traffic was utilised for activities for the political fightagainst the military regime.The links to the drug tradeApart from the money reinvested in the traffic of women and buying of housesand cars, what remains to be explained is the final destination of other huge sumsof money accumulated thanks to the traffic of women. The money sent by moneytransfer or courier to Nigeria and other parts of the world, and at least a part of themoney which remains in Italy, how is this employed?There are at least two hypotheses formulated, which do not exclude each other,but can also compete.In the last report of the Investigative Antimafia Directorate, in relation to theNigerian criminality, they write “The exploitation of prostitution, together withfalse documents, represents the principal instrument of self-financing to developmore important illegal traffic” 70 .According to many of the observers the main illegal investment is the traffic indrugs.Since at least a quarter of a century, the groups from Nigeria have been activein the drug trade, in particular cocaine and white heroin. Even if it is not aproducing country, in the ‘70s Nigeria became an important crossroad in the drugtrade so much as to cover about 50% of the North American market for cocaine. Itis thought that the saturation of the American market was the origin of the openingof the European market.The organisation dedicated to the drug trade is characterised by a strongorganisational capacity, high flexibility in the use of the routes to make the drugarrive in Europe, and the possibility of having many false documents which permitthe affiliates and the couriers to move practically undisturbed between differentcountries, using the nationality and identity most adapted to the moment.The system used for the drug trade is principally that of the so-called“ovulators”: persons who swallow ovules containing drugs and make the journeyhiding the substance. The system is notably parcelled so as to avoid, in the case ofan arrest of someone, the loss of a considerable quantity of the drug.Such parcelling is possible because the organisation has on hand a wide numberof individuals available as couriers, coming from different African countries, inparticular Ghana and Liberia. In different cases it has also been noticed the use of69This is Operazione Edo.70Ministero degli Interni, Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2002).