The police, comprising operatives from the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and the Anti-Violent Unit of the FCT command, have arrested three kidnappers responsible for various abductions in the Bwari Area Council.
The three kidnappers, including one who carries out surveillance on people of commercial value, Idris Ishiaku, aka Yellow; Bala Umar; and Dahiru Salisu, are among the 16 criminal suspects paraded by the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Muyiwa Adejobi, supported by the IRT Commander, DCP, on Saturday in Abuja.
According to the Force PRO, the kidnapping gang was apprehended following the deployment of technology, which was used to intercept a call by Yellow informing his gang that they had successfully kidnapped a wealthy civil servant.
During the telephone conversation, Yellow told his gang members that the civil servant should not be let go unless the family pays the sum of N50 million as ransom.
Asked where he came from and his job, Yellow said he hails from Kaduna but rented a house in Bwari, where he works as a security guard and does farming.
He said that last year he took part in one kidnapping attack but that this year he has taken part in two kidnappings, adding that in one of the kidnappings he made N600,000 and in another he made the sum of N500,000.
It was his insistence that the latest kidnapping (Civil Servang) must yield the sum of N50 million and the process of waiting for the collection of the ransom that led to their arrest.
He said he has no guns or arms, but when they have an operation, he usually gets in touch with another gang that has guns to come join them.
ACP Adejobi used the occasion to advise residents of the FCT to be mindful of the persons they employ as security guards or housekeepers, noting that many of them have questionable characters while others are there to carry out surveillance for criminal gangs.
“Always get information about somebody before renting your house out or employing people as security guards. Contact the police and get the profiles of those you want to employ. We should be vigilant and more careful,” he said.
On the arrest of Chinaza Philips in Kaduna and his handover to the FCT Command, the FPRO said the police did not kill the notorious kidnapper to hide information about his other gang members as being insinuated.
Showing the injured kidnapper, Adejobi said that Chinaza and three other armed members of his gang disposed of his ATM card while on their way to Kano and withdrew N500,000. At Kaduna, they stopped at a petrol station to buy fuel before the police swooped on them.
During the shootout, Chinaza was shot in the leg; three other gang members escaped; the kidnapped victim was rescued, and the Hilux jeep was recovered.
While disclosing that Chinaza was presently on bail from a high court in Kwali, having been earlier arrested for a kidnapping offence, the Force PRO said he jumped bail to commit the latest kidnapping crime.
Three gunrunners involved in selling arms and ammunition to criminal gangs, namely Ayuba Kamson, Samuel Musa, and Magaji Everest, who had sold over 100 arms, including pistols and AK-47 rifles, were paraded. The police recovered 11 pistols and rifles from them.
Another gang of gunrunners and kidnapping kingpins paraded were Usman Yinusa and Samina Haruna, who have their operational base in Obajana and are behind gangs terrorising Kogi and Kaduna states.
Two AK-47 rifles were recovered from them after their arrest by the IRT.
