Naval Rating, prison officer in military uniform arrested for car snatching

Suspects

The suspects paraded in Benin

By Jethro Ibileke

A 25-year-old Naval Rating, Ibrahim Adamu, has been arrested by operatives of Edo State Police Command, for alleged car snatching.

Arrested with the naval operative was Abdullahi Abdulwahab, a 26-year-old operative of Kaduna State Command of the Nigeria Correctional Service.

According to the Edo Police Command’s spokesman, SP Chidi Nwabuzor, the suspects who were arrested in Ekpoma, attacked the driver of an unregistered Mercedes Benz C300 car in Sapele, Delta State, and robbed him of the car.

They further forced their victim to transfer N400,000 to a bank account provided by the suspects in an alleged bargain between them and the driver.

Ibrahim Adamu, the naval personnel, who narrated his level of involvement in the alleged robbery operation disclosed that he was recruited into the Nigerian Navy in 2019, but that he took to car snatching during his course in Sapele town in Delta State.

He said: “I was recruited into Navy in 2019, I work in Lokoja, Kogi State before I was posted to Warri Delta State, it was when I went on course in Sapele that I got the mind to steal vehicle.

“When I finished my course, Abdullahi told me that he wanted to visit me, when he came, I told him that there was work I want us to do that will bring money to us and he agreed.

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“We chattered a tricycle from Warri to Sapele for the operation. We saw a vehicle without number plate in Sapele, we asked him to stop but he refused. We pursued him to a village where he finally stopped.

“I told him we are taking him to our office for driving unregistered vehicle and he pleaded that we should settle the matter there but we refused.

“I took over the steering from him and started driving but when we got to Oghara road, he asked how much he should offer us to settle the matter and I said N500,000 but he pleaded and transferred N400,000 to one POS number in Abuja we gave him, the POS later sent the money back to us. We were driving to Abuja when police arrested us,” the navy officer confessed.

On his part, Abdullahi said Adamu invited him to Warri for the job as that was his first time of getting involved in a robbery operation.

SP Nwabuzo, while parading the suspects, said they were arrested following a tip off.

He added that the suspects were driving the vehicle to one Alhaji in Abuja for sale when they were intercepted by police in Ekpoma, Edo State.

“The suspects have made statements and claimed to be personnel of the Nigerian Navy and Correctional Service respectively,” he said.

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