The thing that caught the police's attention was the matching outfits.

High yellow socks and black berets that featured an emblem of manacled hands, and an axe breaking through the chain.

The two men were each being investigated separately, one in British Columbia and the other in Toronto, for fraud. But it was their presence together, in identical outfits, that sent investigators on a new trail in the summer of 2013, deep into the heart of a Nigerian subculture, the history of student movements, and the African nation's political hierarchy.

Eventually, it led them to a man who said he was threatened with a knife and had watched his car being destroyed in front of him.

The man was frightened.

"He knew who all four men were who threatened him with a knife, but only gave two nicknames and misidentified the organization," Toronto police Detective Constable Tim Trotter said.

"It's a phenomenon we get when people in any community are intimidated. They'll tell you what they think is enough to put you in the right direction, but they haven't exposed themselves too much by telling you the whole truth."

The whole truth has been hard to come by for investigators, but after two years of quietly observing and gathering evidence, they introduced Canadians to an organization most had never heard of: a Nigerian confraternity called The , otherwise known as the of Africa (NBM).

At the end of October, they laid charges against three men who allegedly defrauded a Toronto woman of $609,000, including one who was linked to the .

The elusive group, feared in Nigeria for its brutality, has been exerting "undue influence over the Nigerian diaspora" in Canada, as well as engaging in organized crime and violence, police said.

Aside from fraud and money laundering, police allege the outfit is involved in street-level crime — everything from intimidation to kidnapping to the large-scale movement of stolen goods on a transnational scale.

Last week, Toronto police laid an additional 640 charges and arrested another 18 people allegedly involved in the theft of over 500 SUVs, all worth about $30 million. Six more had outstanding warrants.

These weren't "just thieves," investigators said, but a highly sophisticated crime ring linked to the that placed its people in shipping companies and at a government agency. An investigator used a PowerPoint presentation to explain the ....

full story : https://ourtimeiscome.com/2016/05/07/the-notorious--has-put-down-roots-in-canada/

Must Nigeria be mentioned?