FIVE suspects, including a female, have been arrested in Ogun State for alleged involvement in serial ‘one chance’ robbery operations.
According to a statement by the Ogun State Community, Social Orientation and Safety Corps, codenamed So-Safe Corps, a taxi cab driver, Kehinde Ogunlade, and his partner in crime, four of whom have been arrested, were always in the habit of dispossessing passengers of their personal effects in the Abeokuta metropolis.
Luck, however, ran out on them on Friday, 25 August when operatives of the Corps, on routine patrol, acted on credible information that the notorious driver, Kehinde, was sighted somewhere within the metropolis, and had just robbed a passenger.
On receipt of the information, the state Commander, Dr Soji Ganzallo, detailed his men to go after the culprits, only to discover that they had escaped from the scene.
The statement e-signed by the Corps’ Public Relations Officer (PRO), AC Moruf Yusuf, on behalf of the state Commander, disclosed that the suspects were later traced to their hideout at Itoko in the Ita-Morin Adedotun area of the ancient city, where the five suspects were arrested.
A preliminary investigation conducted by the So-Safe Corps revealed that the principal actors, Kehinde Ogunlate and Yemi Ayoola, after dispossessing passengers of their handsets, sold same to one Olonade Dele.
So-Safe listed the suspects as Taoreed Adeosun, Adeosun Funmilayo, Ayoola Yemi, Ogunlate Kehinde and Olonade Dele, stating that, the female suspect, Funmilayo, picked one of the stolen phones from her husband, Taoreed, and sold it to an untraceable buyer.
In their confessional statements, the Corps disclosed that the suspects owned up to the crime, adding that, robbing passengers was their profession, “and after every successful operation, they drove the victims to secluded spots, to ease their escape.”
Recovered from them was their operational taxi cab, 16 memory cards and assorted phones.
Meanwhile, the suspects, the statement added, have been transferred to the SWAT office at Magbon in Abeokuta, for further investigation and likely prosecution.
Eighteen-Eleven Media