Beninnoise Abduct Lagos Motorists, Sell Stolen Vehicles In Cotonou

The police have arrested members of a robbery gang from Benin Republic, who allegedly specialise in snatching exotic vehicles in Lagos and selling them to a car dealer in their country.

The suspects are Hammed Ajagba, 30; Taviu Polen, aka Popo, 35; Batan Remmy, 30; and an herbalist, Rasheed Akinola, who prepared charms for the gang and helped them in smuggling guns into Nigeria.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the bandits had trailed one Olayinka Oyebola to the Zenith Bank Automated Teller Machine gallery on Ajose Adeogun, Victoria Island, around 9am on January 20.

They reportedly lay in ambush as the man withdrew cash from the ATM.

He was about to leave the place in his Toyota Prado Jeep when they attacked at gunpoint and dragged him from the driver’s seat.

It was learnt that they dispossessed him of a Samsung Galaxy phone, a laptop and a sum of N45,000.

They thereafter put him in the back seat of his Jeep and drove him away.

The police said the assailants dropped off their victim on the Lekki-Epe Expressway and headed for Ikoyi, where they snatched another Toyota Prado Jeep with the number plate, ABC 853 LK.

The occupants of the vehicle, a couple, were said to have parked by the roadside opposite Southern Sun Hotel to buy barbecued meat.

As they wanted to enter the vehicle to continue their journey, the gang reportedly ordered them to the back seat and drove off.

It was gathered that the wife suddenly opened the door and jumped out of the vehicle when the robbers were held in a traffic, while her husband, Fidel Onwodi, was freed on the 3rd Mainland Bridge.

The attackers were said to have abandoned the first stolen Jeep, suspected to have a tracking device, at Babatunde Crescent, Oniru, VI, and took the second one to Cotonou, where it was reportedly sold to the dealer, identified as Benoit. “The victim, in her own account, stated that she went to the service provider for a SIM card replacement and that immediately she inserted the new card into her new phone, she started receiving transaction alerts. A total of N1,153,000 was withdrawn from her account in FCMB.”