Ogun state police arrests suspected female robbery gang

Ogun state police arrests suspected female robbery gang

Crime Guard Nov 13, 2010 By Evelyn Usman
In its resolved to rid the state of criminal elements, the Ogun State Police Command has begun  raid of all criminal hideouts within the state.
In one of the raids carried out in Ifo area of the state, a handset discovered to belong to a top clearing and forwarding agent who was killed by a robbery gang six months ago in Ifo, was found on a suspected female member of the robbery gang.
Crime Alert gathered that the raid was carried out at about 9pm by policemen attached to Ifo Division last Monday. The cops’ attention, as gathered, was drawn to some cars that were parked in a single line on the road at Ilepa bus-stop.
Suspecting occupants of the vehicles, the policemen, led by the Divisional Crime Officer(DCO), Akinade Johnson, a Deputy Superintendent of Police(DSP), reportedly alighted to check the vehicles, only for the occupants numbering six to immediately take to their heels on sighting them. But one of them, a female later identified as Kudirat Adebayo, was arrested.

Thearms and ammunition and the suspect

When the abandoned cars, a Mazda 323 Saloon car with plate number FL 640 LSR, a   Nissan Primera car with plate number  GK 472 ABJ and a Honda Civic with plate number AG 738 BDU were searched, the Ogun State Police Commissioner, Mr Musa Daura, revealed that two A.K 47 rifles with seven fully loaded Magazines and the sum of N7000 were found in one of the vehicles, reportedly occupied by the arrested  woman.
Explaining, the command boss said, “A Nokia phone was also found with the arrested female suspect. When the phone was scrolled by detectives at the State Criminal Investigation Department(SCID), Eleweran, Abeokuta, some text messages which gave rise to suspicion were found.
Kudirat Adebayo had removed  the original sim card  and replaced it with hers. But she was not clever enough as she forgot to delete the messages that were sent to the real owner which were saved on the phone. When the number of the sender who is based in the Eastern part of the country was called, he revealed  that  the owner of the phone,  a clearing agent at the Apapa sea ports  was killed a couple of months ago by an armed robbery gang in Ifo.”
But Kudirat claimed the phone was given to her by a friend in Ikorodu area of Lagos State.  It was gathered that when detectives insisted she took them to Amina’s place, the supposed person that gave her the phone,  she reportedly declined, saying she did not know the exact place, thereby convincing detectives that she was a suspected member of the robbery gang, who after snuffing life out of their victim, made away with his phone.
In this interview , 27-year-old  Kudirat , a widow and mother of one, explained all she claimed to know about the recovered handset.
Hear her: “I was returning home from where I had gone to plait my hair , when I came across Mulikat,  at Vespa bus-stop Ifo, who told me  her husband, Biliaminu Akintunde  was arrested and detained at Ifo Police Station, that she wanted someone to follow her to the station and I obliged.
When we finished at the station, I told her I wanted to go to Sango to buy petrol for my power generating set at Onihale, in Ifo.
But on my way back home, when we got to Ilepa bus stop, I sighted three vehicles parked by the roadside. To our surprise, two of the occupants came out of the vehicles and stopped the vehicle I was in.
As our driver was trying to  park as he was ordered, some policemen in a patrol van came from nowhere and blocked us. The next thing I heard from the estranged men was “awon Baba mbo” ( meaning the fathers are coming) and they took to their heels.
Since I had no skeleton in my cupboard, I did not move an inch but stayed back because I did not want any stray bullet to hit me should there be any cross fire.  It was when the detectives searched the vehicles and recovered the weapons that they came and took me to their station. I do not know any of  the fleeing suspects nor the recovered weapons”, absolved the Gambari, Kwara State-born suspect.
On the slain robbery victim’s handset found on her, Kudirat, a hairdresser, offered, “ It was given to me by my friend Amina, who used to visit me at Onihale, Ifo, when my two phones had screen problem. But I do not know where she stays in Ikorodu.
All I know is that she told me she lives in Ikorodu town and I had never paid her a visit. It is not as if I don’t want to take the detectives to her house but I honestly do not know where she stays in Ikorodu.”