The Edo State Police Command, said it invaded the hideout of suspected notorious gang of kidnappers that specialized in kidnapping little children and arrested them.
The state Commissioner of Police, CP, Mr. Chris Ezike, who paraded the suspects, weekend, said his command had dealt a heavy blow on kidnappers and armed robbers in the state.
Ezike said the gang had a camp in the bush near Benin city where they kept their victims before demanding for ransom.
“The era of Kidnappers and armed robbers having a field day in Edo is gone. Our anti-crime strategies have made tremendous breakthroughs.
“The suspects are the most wanted and deadliest in the state. It took our well-coordinated anti-kidnapping team time to arrest them.
“We were careful to avoid harming the children. The suspects had been terrorising Benin City for some time before we nabbed them.
“When we got their location and moved against them, they resisted and shot our policemen but we got them at last. I want to urge criminals to vacate this state because we would get them.
“We actually monitored these kidnappers and did a coordinated tracking of their telephone numbers and their location,” the CP added.
The alleged kingpin of the syndicate, Lucky Usifo, had been on the wanted list of the Police for over a period of time.
Usifo, fondly called General, confessed before newsmen at the Police headquarters in Benin City saying, “Really, I am the gang leader. Mine was just to receive information about a prospective victim and I would organise the show.
“I work with insiders or close relatives of our victims. I prefer kidnapping children from five years below. They are easy to handle. Once you capture and give them assurance that you love them, they would be calm.
“I feed them with bobo, pap and noodles. Sometimes, they would make request for a choice of food but when you explain to them that you don’t have the money to buy the food, they would understand.
“The operation that put us in this mess was the kidnap of twin sisters. They are three years old. It was Frank that brought the deal.
Frank, according to reports, lives in the same compound with the twins’ parents.
He was said to have given the gang leader a clue on how they could work on one Junior who would give them access to the compound.
“We really perfected the plans and picked the girls. We took them to our camp in the bush where we fed them with pap, soft drinks and biscuits,” Usifo added.
“My anger is that Frank played over our intelligence, we demanded for N1million ransom and Frank went behind to collect the money. They did not give us a dime.
“Frank just used us to collect money from the victims’ family. We later realised that Frank and his sister had collected the ransom and warned the family to stop picking our calls.
“We were armed robbers before we went into kidnapping. We have just carried out two kidnappings, but we have carried out several robbery operations.
“I am from Igeduma, our hit man; Samuel Iredia is from Afuze in Edo State. Iredia is our driver but whenever there is need to confront the Police in gun duel, he is a professional. He is also useful whenever there is need to shoot our enemies.
“Osamuyi Idahosa is the guard; he keeps watch over our camp. Frank is from Agbor. He is just an informant. The lady in our gang is the person that feeds our victims,” the suspect confessed.
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