Mario di Leva and Anna Maria Fontana – also known as Jafaar and the Veiled Lady or Dark Lady. Italian couple who converted to Islam and were radicalized in Libya. Di Leva was a former Freemason and Fontana was a council woman. Arrested in February 2017 for trafficking arms, modified helicopters and large-scale munitions to foreign fighters throughout Europe and to militias in Libya and Iran.
Luca di Leva – son of Mario di Leva and Anna Maria Fontana, arrested in connection with family’s arms trafficking business.
Andrea Pardi – owner of Italiana Elicotteri helicopter dealership and tied to Mario di Leva and Anna Maria Fontana’s arms trafficking business. Arrested in February 2017.
Ali Mohamud Shaswish – Libyan middleman tied to arms trafficking business with Andrea Pardi, Mario di Leva and Anna Maria Fontana. Whereabouts unknown.
Abu Walid – human smuggler in Tripoli who refused to take foreign fighters to Italy because of the low pay offered by an ISIS agent. Whereabouts unknown.
Alleged and Convicted Terrorists
Anas El Abboubi – jihadi rapper and recruiter known to Italian anti-terrorist investigators; attended Islamic Cultural Center in Brescia and launched Sharia4Italia recruitment website. Disappeared after going to Syria in 2015.
Salah Abdeslam – Belgium-born French national of Moroccan descent, connected to the 2015 Paris attacks and arrested in Brussels in 2016. He traveled to Bari, Italy, by ferry from Greece in 2015. In a Belgian prison.
Amponsah – code name for the man producing false documents out of a hidden factory near Naples that he sells on the deep Web. Whereabouts unknown.
Anis Amri – Tunisian-born terrorist who came to Italy via Lampedusa in 2011. Radicalized in a Palermo prison and killed twelve people by ramming a stolen truck into a Christmas market in Berlin. Killed by Italian police in Milan in December 2016.
‘Jo’ – pseudonym for Liberian child soldier who testified to Italian police about the illicit arms trade in and around Castel Volturno.
Mohamed Lahlaoui – Moroccan man arrested in March 2016 on terrorism charges in Germany after being given a deportation notice from Brescia, Italy, in 2014 related to weapons and drug trafficking charges. Attended Islamic Cultural center in Brescia. In German prison.
Khalid El Bakraoui – Belgian national of Moroccan descent, suicide bomber at Brussels subway attack in March 2016. His last call before detonating himself was to Mohamed Lahlaoui; expelled from Italy in 2014.
Saber Hmidi – Tunisian inmate in Italian jail system suspected of recruiting and radicalizing young inmates. In isolation in unnamed maximum security Italian prison.
Djamal Eddine Ouali – Algerian illegally residing in Italy, arrested in Salerno in March 2016 on suspicion of supplying false documents to Brussels airport suicide bombers. Extradited to Belgium in 2016.
Youssef Zaghba – Italian-Moroccan terrorist responsible for June 2017 attack on London Bridge that killed eight people. Was a patron of Sharia4Italia website and Jihadi rapper Abboubi’s music. Killed by police the night of the attack.
Key State Players
Laura Boldrini – former spokesperson for UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) in Lampedusa. President of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, traveled to Nigeria in 2017 to initiate efforts to combat sex trafficking.
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro – Special Representative and Coordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Guido Longo – police commissioner in Palermo working to unravel ties between Sicilian Mafia and Nigerian gangs.
Sebastiano Maccarrone – Director of CARA Mineo Reception Center for Asylum Seekers accused of mishandling funds intended for refugees.
Catello Maresca – Head of the Naples anti-Mafia and anti-terrorism unit.
Franco Roberti – prominent state prosecutor and head of Italy’s Direzione Nazionale Antimafia (national anti-Mafia organization).
Carmelo Zuccaro – chief investigating prosecutor of Catania, Sicily; believes rescue ships should not actively search for migrants, launched first formal investigation into NGO activities at sea.
Key locations near Naples and in Sicily
Mezzogiorno – the southern regions of Italy encompassing Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia and Sicily.
Land of Fires – the largest illegal waste dump in Europe, encompassing an area between Mt Vesuvius and Caserta where more than 550,000 people live; also encompasses the Camorra’s key territory.
Domitiana – a twenty-mile stretch of road extending north from Castel Volturno towards Rome and south to Naples, laid over an ancient Roman roadway built by the Emperor Domitian in ad95 that meets the ancient Appian Way south of Rome.
Castel Volturno – city dissected by the Domitiana in Campania along the coast near Naples.
Coppola Village (also known as Pinetamare) – failed utopian village in Castel Volturno built illegally by Vincenzo and Cristoforo Coppola in the 1960s.
Ob Ob Exotic Fashions Tailor Shop – men’s tailor shop on the Via Domitiana where six African immigrants were shot in 2008 by the Camorra.
Caserta – city in Campania thirty kilometers from Castel Volturno, thirty-five kilometers from Naples.
Lampedusa – the largest of Italy’s Pelagie Islands belonging to the region of Sicily. In the 2000s, the island became the primary entry point into Europe for migrants and refugees leaving the North African coast.
To Help
Please consider making a donation to these groups that work to help victims of sex trafficking in Italy.
Organizations in Italy Working With Sex-Trafficked Women
Casa Ruth
www.associazionerut.it
Welcome center and shelter for migrant women alone or with children who are victims of trafficking.
New Hope Cooperative
www.coop-newhope.it
Cooperative sponsored by Casa Ruth with a tailor shop that creates ethnic fashions by migrants and women who are victims of sex trafficking.
Mondo Senza Confini – Centro Miriam Makeba
World cultural center along the Via Domitiana in Castel Volturno dedicated to the memory of Miriam Makeba where cultural events aimed at greater integration and understanding are held.
Slaves No More
www.slavesnomore.it
Catholic association against sexual violence and exploitation and trafficking of women aimed at prevention and integration of victims in society.
Be Free Cooperative Rome
www.befreecooperativa.org
Social cooperative sponsored by the Catholic Church focused on stopping violence against women, sex trafficking and discrimination.
Talitha Kum
www.talithakum.info
Global network of those in consecrated life in the Catholic Church working against trafficking of humans.
Centro Fernandes in Castel Volturno
www.centrofernandes.it
Migrant center sponsored by the Catholic diocese of Capua focused on education, integration, health and legal concerns of the area’s vast documented and undocumented immigrant population. Sponsors Speranza or Hope project for women rescued from the Domitiana.
PIAM
www.piamonlus.org
Organization based in Asti in northern Italy rescuing and assisting sex trafficked women.
Community of Sant Egidio
www.santegidio.org
Organization established in 1968 dedicated to the poor and migrant and refugee communities with a special focus on victims of trafficking; working directly with the Vatican.
Jerry Essan Masslo Association
www.associazionejerrymasslo.it
Organization named after a South African migrant, who was murdered in 1989 near Caserta in racist violence at the hands of the Camorra, facilitating integration between African and Italian communities in southern Italy.
International Organizations directly assisting migrants, refugees and victims of trafficking
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OSCE – Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
UNHCR – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF – United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
UNODC – United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
IOM – International Organization for Migration (also called the U.N. Migration agency).
Save the Children – UK-based organization working with unaccompanied minors within the migrant community.
Mobile Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) – Malta-based organization founded in 2014 by an American-Italian couple for the purpose of search and rescue.
S.O.S. Méditerranée – Gibraltar-based French humanitarian organization launched in 2015 with one rescue ship working in collaboration with Doctors Without Borders.
Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – international humanitarian organization supplying medical professionals to war-torn areas, launched Mediterranean sea rescue operations in 2015.
Lifeboat Project – German international maritime rescue operation working in the Mediterranean under the International Maritime Rescue Mixed Migrant Safety Project.
Sea Eye – based in the Netherlands, started search and rescue operations in 2016.
Proactiva Open Arms – based in Spain, part of the Human Rights At Sea initiative, launched search and rescue operations in 2016.
Sea Watch – founded by three private business partners in Germany in 2015 to take part in search and rescue operations off the coast of Libya.
Acknowledgments
The official definition of a refugee is someone forced to flee conflict or persecution who cannot safely return back home. The definition of a migrant is someone who chooses to move to improve his or her life. I have interviewed countless victims of sex trafficking who may fall into either category, but who fit neither description, and I thank each and every one of them who told me their painful stories, whether they appear in this book or not.
There are many people I cannot thank by name for their immense help, including the victims both saved and still captive whose names are changed here to protect them from revenge and/or deportation. I also thank, but cannot name, the undercover police officers who kept me safe in Castel Volturno, Caserta and Palermo, for being my guides through a world I could not have traversed alone.
I thank everyone who is quoted in the book for their time, but especially Sister Rita and Sister Assunta at Casa Ruth in Caserta, who opened their home and their hearts to me and restored my faith in many things. They deserve an outpouring of respect (and donations) for all they do with virtually no help from anyone. Without their shelter and dedication, I shudder to think how many women, and especially their babies, wouldn’t survive.
A very special thank you to Blessing Okoedion, whose strength and determination (and occasional lectures) guided and inspired me and kept me focused on the human side of this tragedy. She could have walked away when she was rescued. Instead, she continues to make a difference in the lives of so many other victims.
Andrea Pastorelli was instrumental in keeping me on the right side of the line that separates sex trafficking and sex work. It is because of his crucial advice and experience with sex worker rights for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) throughout China and in New York that I do not refer to the victims of sex trafficking as prostitutes.
I also thank those aid workers who helped me along the way, especially Mathilde Auvillain of S.O.S. Mediterranée, Flavio di Giacomo of IOM and cultural mediator Sarah Adeyinka. I also thank Father Thomas Rosica, whose perspective proved an important aspect in the telling of this story.
Turning my notebooks full of interviews and stories into a coherent book would not have been possible without Rayhané Sanders at Massie & McQuilkin, an inspiring agent who wouldn’t let me give up. I am also indebted to Shadi Doostdar at Oneworld who so expertly whipped this manuscript into shape with the critical eye of a journalist and the expertise of a publisher. I am grateful to my editors at The Daily Beast, CNN and Scientific American who have supported this project and continue to let me tell stories about the migrant crisis in Italy.
Thank you to my sister Sherri Stekl, my most trusted advisor, who graciously read this manuscript at various stages to give me the honest truth about what worked and what didn’t.
Not least, I owe a world of gratitude to my teenage sons who sacrificed the time I should have spent with them so I could research and write this book. Nicholas, seventeen, was able to help me draw up the outline for this book and Matthew, fifteen, was a daily reminder of the exciting journey through adolescence on which many of the girls forced into sexual slavery so poignantly miss out.
Notes
1 UNHCR, “Operational Portal Refugee Situations,” 2017 http://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean/location/5205 [accessed 4 August 2017]
2 The Borgen Project, “Poverty in Italy,” 2014 https://www.borgenproject.org/poverty-italy [accessed 4 August 2017]
3 B. Boucher, “Italian Mafia Helps Arm ISIS With Looted Antiquities,” ArtNet News, 2016 https://www.news.artnet.com/market/italian-mafia-arms-isis-trading-art-707582 [accessed 4 August 2017]
4 B. Nadeau, “Italy’s New Immigration Crisis,” Newsweek, 2009 http://www.newsweek.com/italys-new-immigration-crisis-78305 [accessed 4 August 2017]
5 Amnesty International, “Central Mediterranean: Death Toll Soars as EU Turns its Back on Refugees and Migrants,” 2017 http://www.amnesty.eu/en/news/press-releases/eu/asylum-and-migration/central-mediterranean-death-toll-soars-as-eu-turns-its-back-on-refugees-and-migrants-1056/#.WXsgTFHTWUk [accessed 5 May 2017]
6 Global Economic Prospects, World Bank Group, “Gross Domestic Product 2016,” World Bank, 2016 http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf [accessed 17 April 2017]
7 US Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons 2014 Report: Country Narratives Nigeria,” 2014 https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2014/226790.htm [accessed 4 August 2017]
8 Author interview at Cara di Mineo, Sicily, December 2015
9 Central Intelligence Agency, “World Factbook: Nigeria,” 2014 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html [accessed 25 July 2017]
10 “Marinai Residence – Sigonella Housing Information Page,” Facebook, 2013 https://www.facebook.com/sigonella.marinai2001/ [accessed 4 August 2017]
11 A. Mazzeo, “Grandi Affari a Mineo Con Il Villaggio Dei Marines Di Sigonella,” I Padrini del Ponte, 2010 http://www.antoniomazzeoblog.blogspot.it/2010/10/grandi-affari-mineo-con-il-villaggio.html [accessed 20 May 2016]
12 R. Ferdman, “Spain’s Black Market Economy Is Worth 20% of its GDP,” The Atlantic, 2013 https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/spains-black-market-economy-is-worth-20-of-its-gdp/277840/ [accessed 4 August 2017]
13 B. Natale, “Stupro Di Gruppo Al Cara Di Mineo: Arrestati Quattro Nigeriani,” La Repubblica http://www.palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/12/17/news/stupro_di_gruppo_al_cara_di_mineo_arrestati_quattro_nigeriani-154306893 [accessed 17 December 2016]
14 European Commission: Migration and Home Affairs, “Country Responsible For Asylum Application (Dublin),” https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/examination-of-applicants_en [accessed 2 March 2017]
15 “European Court of Justice Rules Against ‘Humanitarian’ Visas for Refugees,” Deutsche Welle http://www.dw.com/en/european-court-of-justice-rules-against-humanitarian-visas-for-refugees/a-37834318 [accessed 7 March 2017]
16 European Commission: Migration and Home Affairs, “Identification of Applicants (EURODAC),” 2016 https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/identification-of-applicants_en [accessed 4 August 2017]
17 H. Dijstelbloem, “Migration Tracking is a Mess,” Nature http://www.nature.com/news/migration-tracking-is-a-mess-1.21542 [accessed 4 March 2017]
18 L. Sanders, “Anis Amri Habitually Took Drugs Before Berlin Attack, Say Italian Prosecutors,” Deutsche Well
e http://www.dw.com/en/anis-amri-habitually-took-drugs-before-berlin-attack-say-italian-prosecutors/a-37809997 [accessed 4 March 2017]
19 A. Lanni, “5 Things You Should Know About (Second-Class) Nigerian Migrants,” Open Migration, 2015 http://openmigration.org/en/analyses/5-things-you-should-know-about-second-class-nigerian-migrants/ [accessed 4 August 2017]
20 France 24, “Hungary: Shocking Footage Shows Hungarian Police Throwing Bread at Desperate Refugees,” YouTube, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcRNfNS6HWo [accessed 4 August 2017]
21 G. Chiodini, et al., “Magmas Near the Critical Degassing Pressure Drive Volcanic Unrest Towards a Critical State,” Nature, 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13712 [accessed 20 December 2016]
22 University of Chicago Press Journals, “Volcanoes wiped out Neanderthals, new study suggests,” Science Daily, 2010 www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006094057.htm [accessed 4 August 2017]
23 G. Majori, “Short History of Malaria and its Eradication in Italy With Short Notes on the Fight Against the Infection in the Mediterranean Basin,” US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, 2012 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3340992/ [accessed 4 August 2017]
24 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, “The Rockefeller Foundation in Sardinia: Pesticide Politics in the Struggle Against Malaria,” 2005 https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/5117 [accessed 4 August 2017]
25 Castel Volturno: Documentary Villaggio Coppola, YouTube, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU76H7mrijQ [accessed 4 August 2017]
26 V. Ammaliato, “Castelvolturno: Ecco il Quartiere Fantasma,” Agora Vox, 2011 http://www.agoravox.it/Ecco-il-quartiere-fantasma.html [accessed 4 August 2017]
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