Inside the thieves’ guild in Freetown

LIKE MANY clubs, it is selective. Only the right sort of person may join. It has a spokesman, a financial secretary and an interim chairman. But in other ways the Black Street Boys is rather different from, say, a club in Pall Mall or Augusta, Georgia. Members sport matching tattoos of the harp symbol used on bottles of Guinness. And instead of spending their days playing bridge or golf, the Black Street Boys talk about breaking into cars, picking pockets or robbing people at knifepoint.

Before admission, “we’ll interview you, ask where you come from, what your motivation is and why you decided to come here and learn the ways of the streets,” says its interim chairman. He claims to be reforming the gang and that its members now make an honest living patching up car tyres or stitching clothes. But everyone in town says many are still crooks. The chairman took over after the untimely death of his predecessor. He is filling in until an election can be held. His duties include intervening when members scuffle with other gangs, such as Friends of the Dead, whose members loiter at a nearby cemetery.

It is not only thieves who have guilds in Sierra Leone. Every Saturday at 5pm a gaggle of women meet on a beach in Freetown, the capital. Each presents a membership card with her name and photo. A chairwoman leads the discussion...