At a bustling city hotel, our reporter infiltrated a meeting of officials working for the ministry of foreign affairs engaged in deals with human traffickers running travel agencies across the capital.
In one such deal, a Somali diplomatic passport, accompanied by a full accreditation letter and a valid Ministry of Foreign Affairs ID, is available for $10,000.
"After you pay the money, we process the documents. Then you’ll wait for the first government delegation traveling abroad,” explained one official, while talking to a young woman.
The woman, identified only as Fadumo, had traveled from Lower Shabelle and was hoping to be trafficked to Geneva.
"We can sort that out. The government usually sends delegations to attend various conferences at the UN level in Geneva,” the official assured her.
"If Geneva doesn’t work this time, we can try other countries—France, Germany, or Finland,” he added.
Fadumo nodded and replied, "Germany is okay.”
When asked by the official who was financing her trip, she refused to disclose the source of her funds. Their conversation was interrupted by her trafficker, Mohamud, who is the owner of the travel agency.
"We've been doing this for years," says trafficker Mohamud, speaking to our reporter who also posed as a customer seeking his services.
In addition to running a travel agency, Mohamud also works at Somali immigration, where he collaborates with others to facilitate the trafficking operation.
His network spans from Mogadishu to Hargeisa and Nairobi, "involving officials at the Somali embassy in Kenya", he boasts.
Fadumo complains that the price is too high and tries to negotiate, offering $5,000 instead of the original amount.
"We successfully sent 28 people in the past six months. We always get more demand, but we only take a few clients because our service is expensive—many government officials demand payment from us. That's why our service costs so much,” Mohamud explains.
"You deposit the money into a Premier Bank account in Mogadishu," Mohamud instructs Fadumo.
Once her trip to Europe is successful, Mohamud will withdraw the funds from the account and distribute them to his network of traffickers, including officials at the Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
When our reporter inquired about the traffickers' network and how they deposit money at Premier Bank Somalia in Mogadishu, the bank's deputy manager, Mahad Ahmed, declined to comment.
Jobs at NISA for Sale
It’s not only travel documents that are up for sale in Somalia. Hussein, a recent university graduate, revealed that he has been negotiating with a mid-level official at the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), where a position is being sold.
"They told me I had to pay $11,000 for the position,” Hussein said. The role offered was Director of Operations for NISA in Middle Shabelle, but the post would only be his once the full payment was made.
"The person holding that position is leaving the country and wants to sell his position and ID card,” the official explained to Hussein.
Due to the lack of an official record or database to verify documents, it is easy for someone to be added to NISA. As in the past, a simple word-of-mouth recommendation is often all that is required.
"Once payment is made, senior NISA officials would issue a letter confirming this position—no background checks required," Hussein says.
This lack of oversight and the commodification of security roles have left the agency vulnerable to infiltration by militant groups, with Al-Shabaab making it a recurring menace. NISA has been described as one of the most compromised agencies in Somalia, frequently infiltrated by Al-Shabaab, giving the group access to sensitive intelligence.
One of the most damaging incidents occurred on August 4, 2023, when NISA announced that two of its officers, Abdisatar Abdiqadir Isse and Ayanle Mohamed Ali, defected back to Al-Shabaab. Both officers fled with large amounts of confidential information, including documents and communication equipment related to Turkish and U.S. drone operations.
The two young men had gained the trust of NISA, with one even being promoted to the Department of Operations, responsible for liaising with U.S. and Turkish drone programs.
In another grim event on February 10, this year, a Somali soldier—also a former Al-Shabaab defector—shot and killed four Emirati and one Bahraini military trainers at the UAE military camp in Mogadishu. An investigation by the Voice of America (VOA) revealed that the soldier, Mustafa Mukhtar Adan, had been recruited into the army in late 2022 but never renounced his allegiance to Al-Shabaab. Instead, he kept his ties to the group hidden while serving within Somalia’s security forces.
The sale of diplomatic credentials and key government positions, combined with these infiltration issues, exposes how corruption and criminal networks continue to undermine Somalia’s efforts to stabilize its institutions, with severe consequences for both national and international security.
Sourece: hornobserver
