The Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu, has revealed how criminals impersonate personnel of the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force to perpetrate crimes in Abuja.
Disu also disclosed that no fewer than 12 kidnapping and robbery suspects were arrested recently.
He said the command had been inundated with a series of complaints by residents over attacks and robbery operations by some ‘one-chance’ syndicate.
According to the CP, the suspects have been terrorising Abuja people, adding that they were arrested with knives with which they must have been stabbing members of the public before dispossessing them of their belongings.
He gave some of the suspects names as Joseph John Odi, Moses Elashi, Matthias Abogo, Abass Rabiu, Sulaiman Lawal, Laminu Awan, Ibrahim Sheu, Aba Muhammed and Abdulkareem Muhammed.
“Following complaints from two victims, Jeremiah David and Amaka Umenna at Anti-One Chance Office, that on October 12, 2024, at about 12:00pm, they were stopped by three men in white colour Toyota Camry with registration number ABJ, 221 BV, while on transit from Keffi, Nasarawa State to Abuja. The suspects forcefully ejected them from their vehicle, claiming to be officers of the Department of State Services, who were on investigation. They proceeded by driving them to an unknown destination, demanding that they call their families and raise money for their release. The suspects got the sum of N400, 000 transfers from the victims and also collected an iPhone 14 pro Max, iPhone 15 pro, Samsung X20 and Samsung X8 from them.
“On receipt of their complaints, police operatives from this command trailed and arrested them. We are surprised to discover that they are not police officers and they are not members of the DSS. They go around arresting people and demanding money from them, demanding ransom from their families and claiming to be members of the Nigeria Police Force and DSS.
“During interrogation, suspects confessed to the police that they have been impersonating personnel of different security agencies with the aim of extorting and defrauding unsuspecting citizens and that they have been operating on various routes and robbing citizens for the past two years.
“The exhibits recovered from them included one gold colour Toyota Corolla with tinted glass, no registration number; one blue colour Golf 3 vehicle, no registration number; one white Toyota Avalon with registration number RBC 353 DK; one Corolla vehicle, no number plate; one design patrol vehicle, one locally made sophisticated Beretta pistol. The police found it hard to know that it is locally made because it is highly sophisticated.
“We recovered one live ammunition from them, we recovered two ropes which they might be using to strangle their victims,” the CP said.
He added that three of the suspects specialised in one chance operation of impersonating DSS and police operatives, taking unsuspecting members of the public to unknown places and dispossessing them of their belongings.
“This is a very good one for us because every now and then, we receive complaints of one chance robbery and those using knives to stab their victims before robbing them of their belongings.
“We have been able to arrest 12 of them and this is a significant number to us. We will not rest on our oars in arresting other criminals,” he assured.
