A 27-year-old commercial bus driver based in Benue State, Monday Otupa has confessed that he took to robbery and car snatching to enable him get enough money fast, to go back to school.
Otupa and three others, Joseph Oriyan, 27, Basil Fabian 39 and Mike Onazi, 34, were tracked and arrested by the operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IGP IRT) for armed robbery and car snatching in different parts of Nigeria.
The IRT operatives also recovered the suspects’ locally made gun that uses Ak47 ammunition among other dangerous weapons they used during their operations.
According to police sources, some of the suspects are from Benue State and they have no residential house in Lagos and Abuja. When they operate in Abuja and Lagos, they would take the snatched cars to Port Harcourt to sell. At times, they would take their stolen posh cars to Enugu or Benue State.
Among the weapons recovered from them are one Berreta pistol, one locally made pistol that uses 7.61mm ammunition.
The four-man gang has members in Lagos, Enugu, Benue and Port Harcourt. When they want to operate in Lagos they call their members in Lagos to prepare that they were coming to rob in Lagos. If they want to rob in Enugu they need not use members in other states.
They used to operate in a Commando way and each member has specific role to play. They have mechanic, rewire, painter, and a member whose role is to perfect customs papers, vehicle number plates and good receivers, the police source said.
However, the four gang members met their waterloo when they robbed a man of his Mercedes 300 at gun point and injured his wife. The matter was reported to the Inspector General of Police IGP Ibrahim Idris, who immediately ordered the operatives of IRT led by a Deputy Superintendent of Police( DSP), Phillip Rieninwa to fish out the robbers for arrest and prosecution.
First to be picked was one Mike Onazi, whose arrest led to the arrest of Monday and others. Though their gang leader Alfred Adayi is still at large, any member of the gang is an expert in car driving and can lead the gang in any of their operations.
Innocent buyers address them as car dealers without car shops,yet they claimed to be buying the cars from Cotonou and other West African countries and abroad.
One of the gang members named Joseph (Joe) had been arrested more than three times, charged to court and remanded in prison and, at times convicted, yet, he always secure freedom to join his members to rob and snatch cars.
Fabian who claimed to be a mechanic is based at Obigbo in Port Harcourt and his role is to perfect documents of any snatched car sent to him and the money from the sale of the cars are paid into his bank account.
In his confession, Monday said: “I am from Ado Local Government Area of Benue State. I became a commercial bus driver to get money to continue my education. I stopped at Senior Secondary Two (SS2) because I had no money to continue. Unfortunately, I did not get enough money from driving bus.
“In 2015, my friend, Oriyan formed an armed robbery gang and lured me into it. When they snatched one car they gave it to me but SARS operatives arrested me and I was sent to Keffi Prison by an Abuja court. When I came back from prison, Oriyan promised to give me money to back to school. I did not know that he was arranging another robbery operation.
“One morning, one Eze Nwadebelu brought two guns and later brought two more guns and we robbed in Abuja and snatched over 20 cars with the guns. We are five in number, namely Origyan; Unogu; Adayi; Mike and myself. We used to trail victims to super market, banks, clubs, ATM Gallery and even to their residential houses. Our car dealer whose role is to help dispose of our stolen cars is Alfred Adayi aka Olu Motors based in Benue. We used to sell at giveaway price. Highlander Jeep N400,000, Camry N250,000, End of Discussion N250,000. There was a Camry car, we sold N100,000 and used the money to prepare for operation.”
Continuing, he said: “We used women prostitute to get information on how police are looking for us and the position of the victims after the operation. We used to sleep in hotels that are not well patronized and located in a remote area and at times the owners of the hotels and their staff assist us with information and private accommodation for which we pay special money.
“I spent three months in prison and prison made me to be hardened. Prince was still at large when I was sentenced to prison. I pay N3,000 daily in hotel when I was in hiding and I used to change my sim cards regularly to avoid trace from police. Sometimes I used unregistered sim and it works for me. I also monitor peoples phones for my gang.”
