Suspected members of a gang which specialised in hijacking articulated vehicles laden with petroleum products have been arrested by the Osun State Police Command.
Disclosing this during a press briefing, the state Commissioner of Police, Olafimihan Adeoye said that the gang members hijacked a white DAF truck with registration number KUJ 454 ZF conveying 33,000 litres of diesel on Ife-Ilesa-Akure highway on Saturday, February 18.
Adeoye said that after the hoodlums disconnected the valve hose of the truck, forcing it to a stop, they attacked the vehicle driver and his conductor, took them into the bush and tied them up.
But the suspects, he stated further, were intercepted by security operatives at Iloba junction on the highway, leading to the arrest of two of the gang members namely Blessing Akintoye (19) and Gowon Tayo (38) both of Ajegunle area, Ore Ondo State.
“Their confessions led to arrest of the other members of the gang namely Akinjoli Kayode (28), Akinjoli Akintayo (25), Goddey Daniel (37) and Omoniyi Johnson (40), who had once received stolen petroleum product from the gang,” the police commissioner added.
Metro gathered that the police investigation revealed that the truck driver, Musa Muhammed of Old Market area, Abaji, FCT, loaded diesel into the truck at NIPCO Lagos. But on getting to Ife-Ilesa axis, his truck suddenly stopped when the inflow of gas into the engine stopped.
Before he could check what was happening, he and his motor boys were overpowered by about seven armed robbers who blocked him with a black Volkswagen Golf wagon car and snatched the truck.
The Commissioner of Police however assured that efforts were being intensified to recover the operational vehicle of the gang and arrest other suspects at large.
Metro learnt that two of the suspects, Kayode and Akintayo were siblings, while Kayode had also been involved in pipeline vandalism before going into truck hijacking.
In an interview with Metro, Kayode, an indigene of Ile-Oluji in Ondo State, living in Ore, said he started tanker hijacking this year. According to the suspect, “last Saturday, February 18, we followed a tanker on Ife-Ilesa road. I used a Toyota Avensis which I drove to level up with the tanker at about 12 noon when the driver was ascending a hilly part of the road.
“Others got down and I moved on. Soldiers followed them and they were arrested. We have hijacked tankers three times but only one was successful. There was one we hijacked but had to abandon it because it was close to a police checkpoint. I got N50,000 from the only successful operation we had.”
He also confessed that it was true that he worked with friends who vandalised pipelines.
His brother, Akintayo gave an insight into how the February 18 operation was carried out: “Two of our gang members, Jude and Akinyemi stopped the vehicle. One of them moved to where the truck head was joined to the tanker and disconnected a hose. This hindered the movement of the vehicle, giving the other person the opportunity to get to the driver.
“The driver was dragged down after he was hit with a piece of wood. They also used a bottle to frighten him into submission. He and his motor boys were tied; Akinyemi and I kept watch over the driver while Jude stayed with the two motor boys. Two other members of our gang, Blessing and Gowon, went away with the tanker.
“Unfortunately for us, some soldiers were approaching when we were doing all these, so as I saw them moving towards where I was with the driver in the bush, I ran away. Others also fled. That was how the driver told the soldiers that his vehicle had been hijacked. They went after the trailer and caught up with our gang members in it.
“This is my first time in being engaged in this. It was my brother who brought me into the operation, though what he initially told me was that we were going for pipeline vandalism. I had never followed him for pipeline vandalism before but that was what my brother had been doing.”
Another suspect, Blessing, also said: “I was introduced to tanker hijacking by Kayode. He called me, saying that I should drive him to a place he was travelling to. I acted as conductor to Gowon who drove the tanker from the point we hijacked it. I was promised N40,000 as payment for the role I would play.”
When Metro tried to interview Gowon, he sounded incoherent.
The receiver, Johnson, however claimed that he was unaware that a stolen product was being sold to him when he patronised the other suspects in December 2016.
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