…says ‘I’ve only taken one life since I started operations’
Within the spate of 10 years, Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State-born Sunday Bamgboye, 32, has metamorphosed from a bus stop pickpocket to a hardened criminal and cross-border car-jacking expert.
Bamgboye, otherwise known as “Scorpion” in the underworld, recently told The Point at the Lagos State Police Command Special Anti-robbery Squad cell in Ikeja, where he had been detained for over three weeks, that he had lost count of the number of vehicles he had stolen so far.
He claimed that he had taken only one life since he began his unenviable adventure in the crime world. But the investigative police officer at SARS said that operatives had been able to trace 107 stolen vehicles of assorted brands to Bamgboye in addition to the killing of five of his victims.
“He might have lost count of the number of vehicles he has stolen, but we have the number with us. This man has cut short the joy of innocent Nigerians. Imagine someone who has just been celebrated as a car owner, suddenly go back to the nightmare of having to wait at the bus stops.
He has inflicted pains on Nigerians. He has maimed many, killed some and rendered others incapacitated,” said a police officer. The police officer further explained that the arrest of the robbery kingpin followed a three-year painstaking surveillance at his homes.
“He maintained three homes. He has a home in Ghana, one in Contonou in Benin Republic and another in the Idi-Iroko area of Ogun State, South West Nigeria,” said a police inspector.
According to him, “Because of the nature of his lifestyle, it was difficult for us to follow and track him down Cross-border robbery kingpin, Scorpion, arrested with 107 stolen vehicles on time. When we got tips on him and his activities from a reliable informant, Bamgboye was sick and was in Ghana receiving treatment.
So, we could not just go to Ghana and arrest someone who is on hospital bed. What we did, instead, was to go to Ghana and make sure we had a true picture of the person we were looking for, and that we did on December 10, 2016.”
The policeman added that, having been convinced of the identity of the person they had been searching for, the task now was how to arrest him. “You would need to pin him down with something before you can arrest him.
May be caught in the act, facilitating a crime or an unlucky criminal in our custody confessed and mentioned his name,” he said. It was gathered that while policemen at SARS were busy racking their brains on how to arrest Bamgboye, luck smiled on them.
“The Police at Kankan, a border community in the Badagry outskirts of Lagos metropolis, had just burst a deadly armed robbery gang ring, and two members of the underworld were arrested.
“So, when they transferred the case to us here for further investigation and prosecution, during interrogation, one of the boys they brought, one Niyi, in the course of his confession, mentioned that he once operated with one Scorpion, and we pressed him further. That was how he mentioned Bamgboye,” the police officer said.
He added, “By the time we finished comparing notes, it was confirmed that Niyi was actually talking about the wanted Scorpion. That was how we followed through that lead and we were able to pick up one of Bamgboye’s boys. It was these boys who led us to the vast crime empire of Bamgboye.”
The police source said during a raid of one of his hideouts (home) in IdiIroko, Ogun State, “We recovered five AK-47 riffles, buried in an abandoned soak-away pit, 127 rounds of ammunition, 27 vehicles, assorted charms, axes, iron cutters, among other item of his trade.”
It was also gathered that Bamgboye owned a mechanic workshop, where he worked on all stolen vehicles before taking them to his sales outlets at the border between Nigeria and Benin Republic in Idi-Iroko. “When we stormed the vehicles sale out-let, we recovered 87 assorted vehicles.
These are people’s vehicles he stole, worked on and later displayed for sale. Imagine that. People are wicked, but we have recovered all the vehicles,” the source said. The policeman said detectives also stormed the Ghana property of the robbery kingpin and recovered, in one swoop, 10 posh vehicles, which Scorpion and his boys stole earlier and hid in the building just to buy time before working on them for sale.
“Right now, we are on top of his empire and have a firm grip of it. We have been able to trace two persons, whose vehicles are among those we have recovered. They have made statements on how they were robbed of their cars at gun point,” he said.
The Point learnt that it was after the painstaking intelligence gathering that the robbery kingpin was picked up by the six-man crack team from SARS. “He was arrested in Cotonou on January 3, at about 8.00 hours and transported to Lagos on January 4. He is still with us and has made confessional statements and we would soon charge him to court before the end of the month,” said a police officer.
It was gathered that the robbery suspect had made confessional statements, including series of operations he undertook, supervised and even led, both in Nigeria and outside the country. He said his major bet was transborder operations.
When we stormed the vehicles sale out-let, we recovered (additional) 87 assorted vehicles
According to the police, Bamgboye confessed that he robbed mostly “tokunbo” vehicles coming into Nigeria from Cotonou. He also told the police that throughout his almost 12-year operations, he had never killed anybody and no member of his gang, was allowed to do that when on operation with him.”
The police source also said that the robbery kingpin had requested that his wife and four children should not be brought into the matter, adding, “He has refused to tell us how to locate his family. Somebody told us that the wife is from Cotonou.
We also learnt that even when he was not in the police net, his wife never lived with him. Somebody said she stays with her parents and that his children are in schools in Cotonou also.”
The source said that the suspect was a hardened criminal, who only say what he wanted to say and what he wanted you to know, adding, “No matter the amount of torture, he refused to tell us his wife’s name, children or his in-laws address in Benin Republic. There is no trick we have not used, but he remained mute about that. He keeps saying ‘spare my family this, I committed the crime and not them.
So, you have business with me and not with my family’.” It was also gathered that Scorpion has admitted being in possession of all the items recovered from his Idi-Iroko home, and said he had planned to quit armed robbery at the end of January before luck ran out on him.
“But unfortunately, I had been arrested before I quite knew that fate was at work. You win some and you lose some. While it lasted, it was blissful but costly. Because, your herbalist must chop also, I have operated successfully for 10 years. Each of these years, kept hardening me the more; and the more hardened I became, the more I continued in my criminal enterprise. But anything that has a beginning must also have an end. For me, this is the end, though a sad one. Indeed, nothing lasts forever,” Scorpion said regrettably.
