The Lagos State Police Command, yesterday, said it
had smashed a kidnap syndicate which recently relocated to Lagos from the
eastern part of the country and arrested six suspected members of the gang.
Also, the command said investigation into the
kidnap and subsequent release of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area
Chairman, Mr Kehinde Bamigbetan, showed that some of his abductors had fled to
Ghana.
According to the command, the suspects confessed
during interrogation to have one of their hideouts somewhere around
Ibeju-Lekki, where they have successfully kidnapped four persons.
The Lagos State Police Command boss, Mr Umar Manko,
who briefed newsmen on the circumstances that led to the suspects’ arrest, said
an AK -SZ riffle with registration number 6090 was recovered when their Ikorodu
hideout was searched.
Manko disclosed that the suspected kidnappers were
arrested by operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS, when they
wanted to abduct a victim.
One of them whose identity he gave as Solomon Eze,
popularly known as Pastor, was arrested in the densely populated Ajegunle area
of Lagos on a tip off., adding that his confessional statement led to the
arrest of five others, Ikechukwu Chedom, Sunday James, Obinna Egbugha,
Christian Ezinkwo and Emmanuel Iloakazi, in Surulere area of Lagos, where other
ammunition were recovered.
The suspects told journalists at the command
headquarters where they were paraded that their targets were owners of exotic
cars.
According to one of them, Sunday James: “This gang
was formed January this year after one of us, Victor Emmanuel, rented an
apartment in Ibeju-Lekki where we would be keeping our victims.
But operations started proper in February. Since we
started, we have kidnapped four persons.
The first person we kidnapped fetched us N1
million. Victor, owner of the apartment where the victim was kept got, N200,000
while the rest of us shared the balance of N800,000, of which I got N100,000.
“The second victim fetched us N1.8 million. We
bought a Sport Utility Vehicle with which to convey our victims for N1.5
million and shared the balance of N300,000. Of that amount, I got N75,000.”
On how they usually abduct their victims, James
said: “Whenever we are driving on the road and see any exotic car, we would
intercept and order its owner to get down and force him into our vehicle.
“We usually abandon our targets vehicles because we
do not need them. We decided to leave their vehicles because some of them have
car trackers that could easily give us out.”
On whether his gang was responsible for the kidnap
of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area boss, Mr Kehinde Bamgbetan, he
said: “Since we started, we have not kidnapped any influential person or
politician.”
The suspects, according to the command boss, would
be charged to court, adding that effort was still on to get Bamigbetan’s
kidnappers.
Investigations, according to him, showed that some
of Bamigbetan’s abductors had relocated to Ghana, adding that one of them
passed on recently at an undisclosed hospital, after he jumped from a
three-storey hotel building when operatives of SARS stormed the place.
The deceased identified simply as Soldier, was
reportedly in the company of his girlfriend, when he took the fatal jump.
But Manko did not state whether he was a military
man or not. He simply stated that investigation was still ongoing.
No comments:
Post a Comment