Metro News
TRANS–BORDER ROBBERY SYNDICATE BUSTED: We take stolen cars to Benin Republic and return them as Tokunbo– Suspects
A five-man trans-border robbery syndicate who specialised in snatching cars from Nigeria, refurbishing them in neighbouring Benin Republic and bringing them back as tokunbo (fairly used) vehicles, has been busted by operatives of the FIB Intelligence Response Team (FIB-IRT) of the Nigeria Police Force.
The breakthrough recorded by the security agents followed the arrest of a 23-year-old suspected member of the gang Abdulrafiu Olamilekan, following which two other members, namely Idris Adesina (26) and Suleiman Aliu (35) were also arrested. The remaining two members of the syndicate, Wandoko and Tunde Jonny a.k.a Elija, remained at large.
A police source said the gang was so organised that each member had a specific role to play during the robbery operations they usually carried out between the odd hours of 8 pm and 12 am.
For instance, the source said, the role of one of the members during attacks on victims’ homes and room to room operations in hotels or private buildings was to kick the door open.
And during car snatching operations, a member of the gang was saddled with the task of pointing a gun at the owner’s forehead and ordering him or her to vacate the driver’s seat so that their own driver would take over.
Once the operation was complete, they would drive the stolen vehicle to Cotonou in neighbouring Benin Republic.
The three members of the gang in police net were said to have been arrested after a robbery operation they carried out around 8 pm on June 14. After the operation, one of the members was said to have taken a snatched car to the receiver in Cotonou identified as Suleiman.
The gang’s nefarious activities was said to have come to the knowledge of the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, who directed the commander of FIB-IRT, Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, to fish out the suspects and prosecute them so that the people they were terrorising, particularly in the Sango-Ota and Agege axis in Ogun and Lagos states would sleep with their two eyes closed.
IRT operatives swung into action, posing as buyers and calling Olamilekan, who was in possession of two of the gang’s stolen vehicles, and pretending to be interested in them. The moment he surfaced, they picked him up and later used him to arrest Idris Adesina and Suleiman Aliu while two other members of the gang remained at large.
Narrating their experiences at the Oba correctional centre in Ogun State where they were detained, the suspects complained about poor feeding, lack of medical care and other inhuman conditions. But by far the most worrisome, they said, is the attitude of homosexual inmates who are in the habits of luring their victims to the toilet.
Olamilekan, who described himself as an indigene of Iseyin Local Government Area, Oyo State, said: “I dropped out of school at JSS3. My father is a soldier, and when he was posted to Kaduna State, he separated from my mother and life became hard for us.
“I learnt panel beating and later joined somebody who was already established. But I later met a friend named Odunayo. He asked me what took me to prison because I am an ex-convict, and I told him that it was a car snatching offence and that I spent six months in prison.
“I told him that I could open any vehicle without the key and could drive any kind of vehicle. He then promised to get me a job with a big car-snatching gang.
“In my first operation, we saw a man at Ojuore in Ota, Ogun State on May 5, 2021. We were five in number. He came down to open the gate to his house and we rushed towards him. The one who held the gun among us arrested him and collected his money and phone. One of our gang members also led him to the toilet and locked him there to avoid him raising the alarm before we left.
“In another incident, we attacked the owner of a Lexus car and told him to hand over the key to Adesina. We then dragged the owner back into the car, dropped him along the way and zoomed off. The vehicle was then taken to Cotonou.
“Another car we snatched was kept with me in Nigeria, but the buyer I got for it happened to be a police officer. I sold the car for N500,000, but the police officer paid N100,000 and told me to come back for the balance.
“He arrested me when I went back to collect the balance, saying that the vehicle had an issue and somebody would come to interrogate me. That was on 14th June, 2021. That was how I was arrested.” On his part, Adesina, who hails from Owode Local Government Area, Ogun State, said he trained as a vulcanizer.
He said: “When my father died, I became a bus conductor in order to get daily money to feed. But the Lagos task force and LASTMA (Lagos State Transport Management Agency) frustrated us by asking us to pay for a ticket in the sum of N100,000.
“Seeing that we could not raise the money, we sold the bus. I then returned to Agege and started stealing phones. I was arrested and sent to prison in September, 2019 until I was discharged in April, 2021.
“When I joined the gang they asked me to be the gang’s driver. We operated with one gun. When we snatched a Toyota Avensis car, someone sent us the receiver’s phone number and the receiver came and took the vehicle to Cotonou at about 12 midnight, because that was the hour you would not see any police officer on the road.
“The Avensis was sold for N250,000 and they gave me N40,000. For the car I took to the receiver in Cotonou, they paid #250,000. When I was coming back, the receiver, Baba Ibeji, gave me four guns to give to the gang. I gave them three and kept one. I later snatched a (Toyota) Highlander and took it to Cotonou and Baba Ibeji paid #200,000.
“I was in my house when they called me to come and collect an Acura jeep. But when I showed up, they arrested me.”
Adesina recalled that five of them, namely Wandoko, Enife, Sadoko, Tunde Jonny a.k.a Elija and himself participated in the robbery of a hotel.
He said: “I monitored from outside but later joined them, because it was only the money and phone you got by yourself that belonged to you.
“As we entered the six-room hotel, we used our legs to pull down the doors. Unfortunately, we did not cover our faces because we did not know that there was CCTV camera there.”
In his own confession, Suleiman Aliu said: “I am from Porto Novo in Benin Republic and I am married with a child.
“It was Idris (Adesina) who called me to come and collect a vehicle and I came and waited for him at Owode in Ogun State. I had collected four vehicles from him, and I used to take them to my master in Cotonou named Baba Ibeji.
“I was a farmer, but when I got some money from armed robbery, I bought a cab for use in Porto Novo. There was a time they gave me four guns to give to the gang in Nigeria but I refused because I did not have the courage to carry such exhibits.
“I used to take tokunbo vehicles to Nigeria for Baba Ibeji. Initially I did not know that the tokunbo cars were vehicles stolen from Nigeria and brought to Cotonou where they are refurbished and sent back to Nigeria as tokunbo cars.
“Unfortunately, I could not talk because of the money I was making from taking tokunbo cars from Benin Republic to Nigeria.
“If I am released, I will not take stolen vehicles into Nigeria again. I have repented.”
CULLED FROM THE NATION
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA has arrested four members of a drug cartel who runs a cocaine cartel from India in Lagos with a Sports Utility vehicle and two houses belonging to the syndicate, already traced to them sealed for forfeiture to the Federal Government.
This is just as a couple, Kazeem Omogoriola Owoalade (alias Abdul Qassim Adisa Balogun) and Rashidat Ayinke Owoalade (alias Bolarinwa Rashidat Ayinke), also members of the cartel have been declared wanted by NDLEA in connection with cocaine trade.
Spokesman of the agency, Femi Babafemi who made this known, said “Two other members of the syndicate, Imran Taofeek Olalekan and Ishola Isiaka Olalekan were arrested on April 3, 2024 following their bid to export 3.40kg cocaine on a Qatar Airlines flight going to Oman through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos.
“While Imran was the courier conveying the drug consignment to Oman, Ishola recruited him for the head of the cartel, which investigation has now revealed to be Alhaji Kazeem Omogoriola Owoalade whose Indian residence permit bears Abdul Qassim Adisa Balogun based in India.
“Efforts to dismantle his network in Nigeria paid off after five weeks of surveillance and follow up operations when another member of the syndicate, Hamed Abimbola Saheed who works directly with the baron was arrested on Tuesday 14th May at Abule Egba area of Lagos.
“It was indeed Saheed who lodged Imran in a hotel a day before his aborted trip to Oman and equally dropped him and Ishola at the Lagos airport the day they were arrested.
“During a search of Hamed house, NDLEA operatives recovered some phenacetine, a cutting agent for Cocaine, weighing 900 grams.
“He confessed that the recovered substance was what was left of the consignment Imran was taking to Oman the day he was arrested.
“His arrest led to a follow up operation at the home of the Owoalade couple at 20 Eyiaro street, Ogudu Orioke, Lagos where another suspect was arrested and a new model Toyota RAV4 SUV marked FKJ-773 JJ belonging to Rashidat and additional 400 grams of Cocaine recovered in addition to already prepared suitcases to be used for illicit drug concealment, digital weighing scales and other paraphernalia”.
In the same vein, NDLEA officers of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigations, DOGI, attached to a courier firm in Lagos on Wednesday 15th May intercepted two parcels, containing Cocaine and Amphetamine concealed in steel bolts and shea butter.
While the cocaine weighing 587 grams, was concealed in eight steel bolt screws going to China, the Amphetamine consignment packed in vape pens and hidden in shea butter was going to the United Kingdom.
Attempts by Emeka Nwadiaro (aka Mega) to export 3.6kg Loud, a strain of cannabis concealed in 36 water flasks to Dubai, UAE was also thwarted at a logistic company in Port Harcourt, Rivers state on Thursday 16th May while a swift follow up operation led to the arrest of the owner of the consignment, Emeka Nwadiaro in Onitsha, Anambra state same day.
While NDLEA operatives in Lagos intercepted a mercedes benz bus loaded with 840kg cannabis and arrested the driver, Samuel Henry, at Olojo in Ojo LGA, Lagos, another suspect, Lawal Adam was nabbed along Otukpo road, Aliade, Benue state on Friday 17th May with 75,000 pills of opioids including tramadol and exol-5.
Two suspects: Olisa Etisi, 32, and Jonathan Umeh, 25, were arrested along Owerri – Onitsha road, Imo state following the discovery by NDLEA operatives of a big gas cyclinder used to conceal six blocks of Loud, a strain of cannabis weighing 3.85kg.
In Borno state, 70-year-old Adamu Mohammed was arrested at Mbulamel, Biu LGA on Thursday 16th May with 2kg cannabis and 33.55grams of diazepam, while Gaddafi Sani, 27, was arrested with 30 kilograms of cannabis along Abuja-Kaduna road, Kaduna.
In Yobe state, a consignment of 91.1kg opioids and 13kg cannabis going to Maiduguri, Borno state, was recovered from hidden compartments of a petrol tanker along Potiskum-Damaturu road by NDLEA officers who arrested the driver, Ismaila Ali.
No less than four suspects were arrested in connection with the seizure of 2,025 pieces of improvised explosive devices (IED) materials intercepted in a Toyota hummer bus marked AGL 905 XX by NDLEA officers along Agaie – Lapai road, Niger state.
The duo of Abdulrauf Shitu Adeyemi, 46, and Asmiyu Rahim, 45, conyeying the IED materials were arrested on the spot. Follow up operations led to the arrest of Husaini Abdullahi, 25, at Sokoto main market, Sokoto and Nazifi Abdullahi, 37, at Naibawa Motor Park, Kano on Friday 17th May.
The Chairman/Chief Executive of NDLEA, Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) has directed that all four suspects and the explosive materials be transferred to the appropriate security agency for further investigation.
In another operation, Muhammad Lawal, 42, was nabbed at Central Market Motor Park, Katsina State with 1,000 Ampoules of Pentazocine injection.
Also, a total of 105kg cannabis was on Friday 17th May recovered from a house at Obola community, Owan West LGA, Edo state and a suspect, Gloria Oris arrested when NDLEA officers raided the area.
In Kwara state, two suspects: Abdulganiyu Karaman, 55, and Sunday Abel, 37, were on Saturday 18th May arrested with 83kg cannabis and tramadol at Boriya, Baruten LGA, and Offa respectively.
With the same vigour, the various commands of the Agency across the country continued with the War Against Drug Abuse, WADA, advocacy campaign in the past week.
Some of them include: WADA sensitisation lecture for students and teachers of Government Girls Science secondary school, Malumfashi and Government Girls Science Secondary School, Daudawa, Katsina; Government Girls Science College, Tunga Magajiya Rijau LGA, Niger state.
Others are students and teachers of St. Theresa’s College Oke-Ado, Ibadan, Oyo state; students of Government Girls Secondary School, Tudun Wada, Kano; students of Dein secondary school, Imobi secondary school and St. Columbas Grammar School, Agbor, Delta State.
While commending the officers and men of the MMIA, Rivers, Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Yobe, Borno, Niger, Benue, Kwara, Imo, and Edo Commands of the Agency as well as those of DOGI for their outstanding feats in the past week, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) said the efforts have further affirmed the cardinal role of NDLEA in the security architecture of the country.
He equally applauded their counterparts in all the commands across the country for intensifying their WADA advocacy lectures to create a fair balance between their drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction activities.
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