Delta State police command has smashed a child trafficking syndicate with the arrest of a 56-year-old woman, Mrs Ekeuno Ifeanyuwa and her cohort one Mrs Nkaneme Malife in Onitsha, Anambra state.
At the time of being arrested, Mrs Ekuno Ifeanyuwa was having two babies which she claimed to have been bought for over N2m while the police is hunting for a female staff of the Anambra Ministry of Social Welfare for using her office to facilitate trafficking in babies in the name of adoption.
Parading 182 suspects in Asaba on Wednesday, the state commissioner of Police, Hafiz Mohammed Inuwa said acting on intelligence, one Tolulope Bosede, a 45-year-old woman and Abiola Komolafe, 20 years old of Akure in Ondo state were intercepted and arrested while on transit in a commercial bus along Asaba-Benin expressway in Okpanam near Asaba.
According to him, the duo who are sisters were suspected to have sold a newly born male child delivered by Abiola Komolafe to a trafficker in Onitsha and were heading back to their base in Akure when they were arrested.
Commissioner Inuwa said the elder, Tolulope Bosede during interrogation, that she tricked pregnant Abiola Komolafe from Akure to Onitsha where she successfully gave birth to a baby boy.
The woman said she later took the baby from the mother and sold him to Nkaneme Malife in Onitsha while she lied to her that the baby died some hours after delivery.
The buyer, Malife later sold the child to Ifeanyuwa.
The commissioner of Police disclosed that a total of 13 police AK47 riffles with ammunition robbed during an attack on Policemen in the state over the years have been recovered.
According to him, following recent series of attacks of Policemen at nipping points and snatching of Police riffles by suspected members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Asaba, the command made the arrest of some principal suspects after investigation.
Subsequently, he disclosed that police operatives recovered arms and ammunition snatched from Policemen from Ugwunwosu camp of the proscribed group 10 AK47 rifles, 10 magazines with 200 rounds of AK47 ammunition.
At IPOB training camp in Ibusa, CP Inuwa said 1 AK47 rifle with its magazine and 26 rounds of 7.62mm robbed from Safer Highway Patrol Team along Ogwashi Uku – Kwale road was recovered from where it was buried in the camp.
Similarly, two suspects led the operative to Idunogi forest in Okpanam and recovered 2 AK47 riffles, 1 Smoke Gunner, 1 Smoke Canister, 4 AK47 magazines, 212 AK47 ammunition, 1 MP3 and a set of Allen keys, he hinted.
The police boss said some suspected ritualists pretending to be of unsound mind were arrested in Igbogidi community in Udu council area of the state with 9 suspected human bones, 15 used baby pads, a pair of skating shoes.
He gave their names as Yakubu Bala Dagan from Takum, Taraba state and Emmanuel Obughor, 33-year-old from Ahoda East of Rivers state.
Among those paraded, were 53 suspected armed robbers, 23 kidnappers, 66 cultists, 7 murderers and 28 others who recently protested at Abraka market.