This present darkness: A history of Nigerian organised crime

By (author): Stephen Ellis. Stephen Ellis traces the origins of Nigeria's global reputation for organised crime to late-colonial-era patronage politics, where nationalist politicians traded government contracts for kickbacks, embedding corruption and a broad disregard for law. When Nigeria's oil economy collapsed in the early 1980s, educated Nigerians increasingly turned to transnational criminal enterprise just as new global black markets opened up. Ellis charts the resulting spread of drug trafficking, financial fraud (including advance-fee/"419" scams), cybercrime, smuggling and human trafficking.