The police in Abia State have paraded three suspected members of a robbery gang allegedly specialising in dispossessing victims of their cars and other valuables.
Two women have also been nabbed in the kidnap of a baby only a few weeks old. One of the suspects is said to be a grandmother, the other her daughter.
The male suspects Promise Sunday, two commercial motorcyclists Uche Nwachukwu and Ugochukwu Okoro, both of Mgbarakuma village in Umuahia South Local Government Area of the state were arrested and brought to the Ubakala Police Station by soldiers after they allegedly robbed two female victims.
The gang was said to have collected from their victim a handbag containing clothing valued at N27,500, shoes valued N7,500, necklace and earrings valued at N1,700, cream and perfume valued N2,000, one Samsung Galaxy X4, two Tecno phone valued N40,000, two Nokia phones valued N9,000, totalling N79,700.
The victims who names were given as Jenifer Ekpeme of Okpuala Ngwa and Tochi Ngwaba of Umuode both in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area were said to have engaged the services of Promise Sunday and Uche Nwachukwu not knowing that the duo had evil intention against them.
The Commissioner of Police, Joshiak Habila who spoke through the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Ezekiel Onyeke said that the suspects were followed by Ugochukwu Okoro in another motorcycle as he later joined his friends to rob the victims after brandishing machete and threatened to cut them to sizes if they refuses to cooperate with them.
Onyeke said luck ran out on the gang when detectives from Ubakala Police station swooped on them.
According to Onyeke, the police team was able to recover from the gang, three out of the four phones, necklace/earring, perfume/pomade, two machetes, three motorcycles, one Army face cap, one LG TV, one Sony/LG DVD, one Kenwood deck, two speakers and one standing fan.
He said that investigation into the matter were still ongoing.
In another development, two women whose names were yet to be obtained as at the time of this report, have been arrested at Umunna Nsulu in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of the state by the police.
The women, according to reports, were arrested by police over the role the grandmother and her daughter played in an alleged abduction of a week old baby by yet to be identified abductors.
The initial report was that unknown gunmen attacked the resident of the family to abduct the baby after the mother had allegedly lost one of her children during childbirth.
According to a source who pleaded anonymous, “The situation in the first instance attracted pity by members of the community but the women shot themselves in the foot when they told police that they raised alarm which the people living around their house countered. Because, according to them, there is no way that the two women could have raised alarm without members of the family not being aware.
“In fact, a member of the kinsmen had claimed that the women were overheard making arrangements for a shop before the incident happened which raised suspicions that they connived with the abductors to sell the baby”.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Onyeke in a telephone chat confirmed the incident though he said he was out of the state on official assignment.
According the PPRO, who said he was yet to be properly briefed on the matter by the divisional police in whose jurisdiction the incident happened, added that the matter and the suspects have been transferred to the state CID for further investigation into the matter.
