Kwara: Police recover N11.3m from 2 kidnap suspects, arrest 3 other female suspects
Dele Moses, Ilorin
Kwara State Police Command has recovered the sum of N11, 363, 500 from two suspected kidnappers in Share axis in Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state.
The recovery was made after the suspects were arrested by the anti-kidnapping patrol team which include the police and the vigilante members.
The state police commissioner, Adekimi Ojo, who made disclosure of the recovery and the arrest said the suspects were arrrsted while riding on a motor bike with a bag with them.
He said the manner by which the suspects were conducting themselves made the patrol team to intercept and carry a stop and search on them which led to discovery of the money in the bag.
Ojo explained that during detailed profiling and background checks it was discovered that one of the suspects, Suleiman Jamiu, had previously been linked with a kidnap case reported in February in which a ransom of N20m was demanded from the victim’s family.
He said the suspect escaped arrest then and had since then been placed on the watch list as a person of interest in related to multiple kidnapping case within the state.
The commissioner said that preliminary intelligence suggested that the money recovered might be proceeds of crminal activities of kidnapping related either carried out previously or on-going as at the time the suspects were arrested.
He said investigations were going on to trace collaborators and stash locations of the ransom collected by the syndicate.
The police boss also disclosed arrest of three women in a kidnapping related case in Babanla community also in Ifelodun local government area.
He said the women were arrested at a motor park in the community in a vehicle they were passengers.
Ojo said that security operatives while acting on a credible intelligence thst some passengers in the vehicle were acting in supicuous manner intercepted the vehicle and after a search recovered an AK-47 and 39 rounds of live ammunition in a bag belonging to one of the women.
He said the woman confessed that the weapon was given to her by a man identified as “Mai Gowaye” based in Kaduna with an instruction to hand it over to a man identified as “Saleh” in a forest around Babanla used as a hide-out by criminals.
He said that another of the women said she was relocating to the forest to reunite with her husband whom she admitted is a member of a kidnap gang operating in the area.
The police boss disclosed that a forth woman escaped from the the motor park when she cited the operatives and assured that the woman would also be arrested.
