OPERATIVES of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State police command have arrested members of a robbery gang who lured phone sellers to hotels and other places to attack them.
The suspects, who were paraded before journalists, on Friday, by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, reportedly shot a policeman while trying to escape.
It was gathered that the suspects tricked online sellers of expensive mobile phones into showing up in places to where they robbed them.
The suspects, who were arrested at Olamulti Hotel, New Site, at the Iba area of Lagos, were identified as Winfred This, Bright Eloho, Emeka Egbemedu and Olanrewaju Kamilu and they were.
The gang had on 7 March, 2017 shot one Sergeant Garba Kadiri, an RRS operative while attempting to evade arrest after they were tracked down by the officers on Pretty Street, Iyana School, LASU– Iyana Iba Road.
The RRS operatives were working on information given by some victims when they traced Ehis and other gang members to a location in Iba, where they shot the officer before escaping.
According to Ehis, a Chemical Engineering graduate of the University of Benin, “what I did was to shop online for expensive phones and goods. I would request the sellers to make home delivery.”
He added: “I would send the delivery address to the seller. When the seller gets to the address, he would call me and I would control my boys to go to the delivery address and rob the seller.”
Owoseni said that efforts were on to arrest other members of the gang.
“I didn’t follow them to the robbery scenes. It is only Nurudeen, alias “Onyabo,” that carried out the execution. I know he has a locally made shotgun. And, I am aware he had recruited other boys to join him in the robbery.
“All I did was stay in hotels. I didn’t even go out at all. I was always indoors. They did the robbery, sold the phones and gave me my share of the deal.
“Nurudeen is always in hiding. He doesn’t come outside since SARS, Lagos, picked up his closest friend last year. He is short. He sneaks into Lagos mostly at night through the creeks from Ogun State.”
A source stated that Ehis has several gangs who do his runs for him. The source added that the suspect was into internet fraud and ATM point robbery.
Before his arrest, the source stated, Ehis stood at different ATM points in Igando, Ojo, Alaba and Apapa to monitor people who withdrew money and then ask his boys, who operate mostly on motorcycles, to trail the withdrawers and collect the money from them.
After his arrest, about five victims from Computer Village in Ikeja have besieged RRS headquarters to give information about the operation of the gang.
Two of such victims who came forward on Thursday were Oluwaseyi Sunday and Alabede Habib.
Both of them, in separate statements, said Ehis, pretending as “Barrister Deji,” had, sometime in February 2017, requested that expensive phones be delivered to him at two different addresses on LASU-Iyana Iba Expressway. The victims were later robbed by three of Ehis’s gang members operating on a motorcycle at the delivery points.
The sellers claimed they lost N800,000 and N450,000 to the robbery.
Items recovered from Ehis when he was arrested were a Tecno Cq phone, an LG 3 phone, one I Mobile phone; two wristwatches, a Canon camera Eo87D, a necklace, a Sony laptop, a rap of Indian hemp and an ash colour Altima saloon car with the registration number APP 493 EH.
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