One of the three suspects arrested in connection with being members of a car snatching and receiving syndicate, Abubakar Yahaya, has spoken on how he became a member, saying that his role was just to be a guide of the driver of the vehicle to its new destination.
Yahaya and two others – Nasir Kabir and Aminu Dalandi – were arrested by police operatives attached to Monitoring Unit, Oyo State Police Command, in Ogbomoso town while taking a snatched Kia Rio car to Kebbi State.
Briefing journalists on the suspects’ arrest, the command’s Police Public Relations Officer, SP Adewale Osifeso, who disclosed that the syndicate engaged in trans-border crime adding that, Yahaya and one other at large were intercepted on September 1, at about 2pm, by the team of police operatives attached to Monitoring Unit, Ogbomoso while on anti-crime patrol within the town.
The team had stopped a Kia Rio car and when the occupants were asked about the owner, they were unable to give any satisfactory explanation.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that the move by the police operatives to call the number written in the vehicle document exposed the occupants, which made the driver to escape, leading to the arrest of Yahaya.
When called on phone, the owner of the car had disclosed to the police that the car was snatched from him at gun point.
Yahaya had immediately confessed that he and the driver who escaped were taking the car to Kebbi State from where it would be handed over to other receivers in Niger Republic.
He later led the police operatives attached to the Command’s Monitoring Unit to Kebbi where two other suspected members of the syndicate Nasir Kabir and Aminu Danladi were arrested.
In addition to the intercepted Kia Rio car, a Torrent SUV, two Toyota Camry cars and a Toyota Yaris were recovered in Kebbi.
Yahaya, aged 24, however said that he never knew that the vehicles he had been helping to transport from Lagos State to Kebbi were snatched from owners at gunpoint.
In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune, Yahaya, a Kano State indigene trading in parboiled rice and vegetable oil, said: “I was arrested because of a vehicle a driver and I were taking to Kebbi. It was an Igbo guy who gave me the car to take to Kebbi for sale. He got my mobile number through one Kabiru, a fish trader in the same market with me, though he is currently in prison.
“Anytime the Igbo guy had a vehicle, he would call me on phone and ask us to meet at a point in Lagos State. He would get a driver and I would be the guide to Kebbi. After selling the vehicle, he would send PoS account number and I would send the proceeds to him. He has given six vehicles before my arrest. He usually gave me between N50,000 and N100,000.”
Disclosing how he was arrested, Yahaya said: “We were stopped by police operatives in Ogbomoso, and they asked us to tender the car’s documents. After they were checked, I was asked to call the owner and I called the Igbo guy several times, but he didn’t pick his calls.
“That was when one of the police officers called the number written on the vehicle particulars and the owner told him that the vehicle was snatched from him at gunpoint.
“Immediately, the driver escaped and I was arrested.”
The second suspect, Kabir, aged 32, from Argungu Local Government Area, Kebbi, narrated his involvement thus: “I’m an auto technician popularly called mechanic. I didn’t know that the vehicles being brought to me were snatched at gunpoint from their owners.
“One of the vehicles was brought to my workshop to repair burnt gasket. It was Kabiru, the man now in prison, who told me that someone in Lagos wanted to sell a car. He asked whether I had someone who would like to buy the car and I took it to Sokoto State to sell it.
“I sold two of the vehicles brought to me at Argungu, two at Birnin Kebbi and two in Sokoto, but four of the vehicles have been recovered by the police. The person who bought the remaining two has absconded.”
He said he was usually given between N50,000 and N150,000.
The third suspect, Danladi Garba, 28, a panel beater, said that he only knew Kabir. “I didn’t know about the business Kabir was involved in. We were in the same workshop doing our businesses in auto repair. He only asked me to help him take a car I repaired to a man at Birnin Kebbi.”
The PPRO said that Investigation was on going while efforts were being intensified to arrest other members of the syndicate.
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