Car-snatching gang, herbalist arrested in Lagos after botched operation
The police have busted a gang of armed robbers specialised in snatching exotic cars in Lagos and selling them to a car dealer in their country.
The suspects are Hammed Ajagba, 30; Taviu Polen, aka Popo, 35; Batan Remmy, 30; and an herbalist, Rasheed Akinola, who prepared charms for the gang and helped them in smuggling guns into Nigeria.
Lagos Police Commissioner, Edgal Imohimi, paraded the suspects on Tuesday at the command headquarters in Ikeja.
They reportedly lay in ambush as the man withdrew cash from the ATM.
He was about to leave the place in his Toyota Prado Jeep with the number plate, LSR 677 DF, when they attacked at gunpoint and dragged him from the driver’s seat.
It was learnt that they dispossessed him of a Samsung Galaxy phone, a laptop and a sum of N45,000.
They thereafter put him in the back seat of his Jeep and drove him away.
The police said the assailants dropped off their victim on the Lekki-Epe Expressway and headed for Ikoyi, where they snatched another Toyota Prado Jeep with the number plate, ABC 853 LK.
The occupants of the vehicle, a couple, were said to have parked by the roadside opposite Southern Sun Hotel to buy barbecued meat.
As they wanted to enter the vehicle to continue their journey, the gang reportedly ordered them to the back seat and drove off.
The attackers were said to have abandoned the first stolen Jeep, suspected to have a tracking device, at Babatunde Crescent, Oniru, VI, and took the second one to Cotonou, Benin Republic, where it was reportedly sold to the dealer, identified as Benoit.
The robbers, however, met their Waterloo on February 11 in a botched operation at Mile 2, along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway.
Imohimi said: “After a careful analysis of intelligence information available to the command, the undercover operatives were activated and dispatched. Their efforts paid off on Sunday, February 11, when they intercepted the trans-border robbers at Mile 2 while on a mission to snatch another exotic car.
“The suspects confessed to a series of robberies during which exotic cars were snatched at gunpoints. They also confessed that Mr. Fidel Onwodi’s Jeep is in Cotonou.
“One AK-49 rifle with serial number PE-2473; 43 AK-49 pieces of live ammunition; one locally-made cut-to-size double-barrelled gun; six live cartridges; one number plate, JD 697 KJA and assorted charms were recovered from the suspects.”
The CP added that efforts were ongoing to apprehend other fleeing members of the gang and to recover the Jeep.
