African Maffia

This idea came to me today. I see three ways to go about it. The first is the straight challange, go make a African mafia so to speak. The second is the WI, what if Africa had a mafia. The theird start with a observation. Africa got both criminal groups and corruption, what if there where a African Mario Puzo, author of the Goodfather, who take existing African organised crime and popularize talking about it?
 
the only thing missing, IMHO, is large scale profitable trade

plus, any criminal organization that can survive european colonization is nothing to screw with :D
 

Keenir

Banned
This idea came to me today. I see three ways to go about it. The first is the straight challange, go make a African mafia so to speak.

these would likely build from their age-set societies or from the secret societies (depending on where you're setting this mafia)
 
Though I am not from Africa, it still ticks me off when people refer to the second largest and most populous continent as one unit. Specify which area you are referring to, because currently your question is the equivalent to 'What if there was a European mafia?' or 'What if there was an Asian mafia'.
 
Umm, I think that the massive secret societies in western Africa would count as a mafia. Quite often they did the exact same stuff as a mafia.

And organized crime is all over Africa, in fact in Zimbabwe they call it the government.
 
Though I am not from Africa, it still ticks me off when people refer to the second largest and most populous continent as one unit. Specify which area you are referring to, because currently your question is the equivalent to 'What if there was a European mafia?' or 'What if there was an Asian mafia'.

Well, it is a pick a part of your choise question. If you want to discuss mafia-like organisations in a more specific area, that is just fine.
 
I'm not sure there isn't such a thing in many places, though maybe not quite as broadly based as the 'Italian Mafia' in the US. Bear in mind that in Italy, organised crime is run along regional lines (Calabrian, Apulian, Sardinian and Sicilian mobsters don't really talk to each other). It was only in the US that they were all alike treated as 'Italians' and thus could become an 'Italian mafia'. Right now, the situation in Europe could serve to create something similar. Criminal groups from several West African countries are involved in snakeheading, drug running, fencing, and the usual community-based extortion and violence right now. Lots of Europeans, both xenophobes and genuine law enforcement experts, do nowadays speak of 'African organised crime', though as yet it still appears to be Nigerian, Cameroonian, Ghanaian or Senegalese organised crime. But I could see a sense of joint African solidarity emerging from this constellation.

Of course, that would be very bad news for European policing, because especially the Nigerian groups have a repuitation for violence that would make the Albanian mafia flinch.
 

Rockingham

Banned
Though I am not from Africa, it still ticks me off when people refer to the second largest and most populous continent as one unit. Specify which area you are referring to, because currently your question is the equivalent to 'What if there was a European mafia?' or 'What if there was an Asian mafia'.

People use those generalizations for every continent though....maybe more commonly then with other continents, but still
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
If the Triads can be referred to as the Chinese Mafia and various Ukranian and Russian gangs are referred to as the Russian Mafia, I think it would be perfectly fair to refer to some of Nigeria gangs as the Nigerian Mafia or the African Mafia.
 
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