How Abuja police used N7m ransom as bait to apprehend kidnappers

A five-man kidnap syndicate has been nabbed by the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Police Command.

The police recovered N7m from the suspects – Ifeanyi Paul, 34; Chukwuemeka Michael, 28; Matthew Obi, 29; Husseini Abdullahi, 35; and Musa Lawan, 27; who abducted a lady in the Maitama area of Abuja, and held her hostage at their hideout in a hotel in Sokoto State.

DAILY POST gathered that the suspects were nabbed at a police checkpoint in Talata-Mafara, Zamfara State, after a manhunt by operatives of the FCT and Zamfara Police Commands.

Parading the suspects before newsmen on Thursday, the FCT Commissioner of Police, CP, Mohammad Mustafa, said the suspects, after successfully moving their victim to their hideout, handed over her Toyota RAV 4 to another suspect, who was said to have supplied the gang with the rifle they used for the kidnap.

He said, “On July 27, 2016, the gang waylaid and kidnapped a lady from Maitama in Abuja and took her to a guest inn in Sokoto where she was held hostage and locked up in a toilet.

“The culprits then contacted the victim’s family and demanded N15m as ransom, which was later reduced to N7m after much negotiation with her family.

“While this was going on, a team of eagle-eyed police detectives kept vigil as the suspects made frantic efforts to pick up the ransom at a location in Zamfara State.

“The suspects received N7m from the parents of their victim as ransom.

“The ransom was a bait by the police to lure the suspects out of their hideout,” the CP said, adding that the victim was rescued at a boundary between Zamfara and Sokoto states after the suspects’ vehicle was involved in an accident and the suspects abandoned it to escape in another car.

But 34-year-old Paul denied the allegation.

The suspect said, “It was one Alhaji Usman, a politician that invited us to come to Sokoto.

“He asked us to go and guard the lady, who had already been kidnapped.

“Initially he invited us from Onitsha to come and work for him and we thought it was a good job. We didn’t know it was this kind of job. On our way back, the police arrested the three of us.”

The CP further noted that the suspects would be charged to court soon.

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