RRS nabs seven suspected armed robbers
THE hands of the law caught up with a group of suspected robbers after operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), a unit of Lagos State police command arrested the syndicate believed to have been terrorising College Road, Fagba, and Abbattoir areas of the state.
For this group, their diversity in ethnicity was not a barrier as they were united in forming a gang with the sole interest of robbing Lagosians of their valuables. The robbers were arrested on Valentine’s day at about 9:00p.m. at College Road, Ifako-ijaiye, after the gang had robbed more than five passers-by of their valuables brandishing knives and other lethal weapons.
The suspects: Lekan Akinyemi, 23; Chimeze Ofulie, 18; Babangida Abdullahi, 22; Abubakar Umaru, 30; Samuel Oyinloye, 24; Timileyin Oladipupo, 27; and Habeeb Olayinka. All the suspects reside in Abattoir, Agege. The suspects had on Thursday, robbed one Agafe Au- gustine after he alighted from a taxi at College Road, Ifako-ijaiye. Among the items collected from him by the gang were an Android phone, N14,000 and a handbag.
According to Agafe, “I allowed them to rob me because they were many and were holding dangerous objects but I trailed them to an open place before raising the alarm. This drew the attention of some RRS officers on patrol in the area and they arrested some of them.”
He added: “They also robbed other victims, among whom was a lady in company of her boyfriend. They dispossessed them of their phones and stabbed her boyfriend who refused to let go of his mobile phone after parting with his wallet.”
In his confessional statement to the crime, one of the suspects said they specialise in robbing passersby at night, collecting their mobile phones, bags, jewelry and wallets.
Investigation by the police revealed that one of the suspects, Timileyin Oladipupo, popularly known as ‘Timi Yahoo’, specialised in working on SIM cards of the stolen phones to determine which ones are internet banking enabled to facilitate transfer of money from victims’ accounts.
He said: “I have worked on so many SIM cards. What I do is to further increase our gain from the robbery by transferring victim’s money from their bank accounts after using some software to determine how much are lodged inside their accounts and we also share the proceeds”.