Police nab 63-year-old kidnap kingpin with 35 stolen cars

The Nigeria Police Force yesterday paraded a kidnap kingpin, Maitarari Isa Saidu, who was arrested with 35 stolen vehicles.

Saidu was paraded in Minna, Niger State by the Force Public Relations Officer (FPPRO) Jimoh Moshood in Minna along with 48 suspects, including two of his children.

The father of 29 children and three wives told journalists that he was behind several kidnap activities across the state and neighbouring Zamfara, Kaduna and FCT and Yobe in the Northeast.

He said he collected N300m and N170m respectively from his last two operations before concentrating on the business of receiving stolen vehicles.

He said the police recovered 28 stolen cars from his depots in Niger and Abuja, 15 others from Zamfara and a number of other stolen cars from Kaduna.

He said, “The business of kidnapping became too risky for me. That was the reason for switching to receiving stolen cars and I have been in this for some years.”

He said he ran into trouble when his boys received and paid N400,000 for a car which he quickly took to sell at the cost of N800,000 in Kano as a result of which the police got him.

Parading the suspects, Jimoh Moshood said that they were arrested by men of Operation Save Sanity deployed to check rising crime rate within five states, including Niger.