On March 7, 2017, members of a notorious gang, which specialise in robbing couriers of online trading stores, shot at an operative of the Rapid Response Squad, Sgt. Garba Kadiri, while attempting to evade arrest at Pretty Street, Iyana School, LASU – Iyana Road.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that through the reports of victims of the gang, the RRS had tracked down the gang but they shot at the officers before they could be arrested. But on Wednesday, after days of tracking the suspects, operatives of the squad, apprehended four suspects.
The suspects, Wilfred Ehis (30); Bright Eloho (24), Emeka Egbemedu (22) and Olanrewaju Kamilu (33) were arrested at Olamulti Hotel, New Site, Iba, Ojo, Lagos. The leader of the gang, Ehis, claimed to be a Chemical Engineering graduate of University of Benin, Ekpoma, Edo State.
During his interrogation, he told the RRS, “I operate by placing orders online for expensive phones and goods. I request the sellers to make home delivery.
“I would give the seller an address where I know the robbery can be carried out successfully. When I have made the necessary arrangements, I would then call my boys to go to the delivery address and rob the delivery man.
“I didn’t follow them to the robbery scene. It is Nurudeen, alias ‘Onyeabo’ who oversaw the robberies. I know he has a locally made pistol. I am also aware he recruited other boys to join him in the robbery.”
“I always stayed behind in hotels. After the robbery, they sold off the phones and gave me my share of the deal.”
Saturday PUNCH learnt that Nurudeen is still in hiding.
Ehis said the suspect has gone underground since the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad picked up one of his friends last year.
“He sneaks into Lagos mostly at night through the creeks from Ogun State,” he said.
The police believe Ehis has several separate gangs who handle his different operations.
He is also suspected of being involved internet fraud and ATM robbery.
The source added that, Ehis before his arrest stood at different ATM points in Igando, Ojo, Alaba and Apapa to monitor ATM users, who withdrew money. He then alerted his gangs, who usually used motorcycles to trail and rob their victims.
After his arrest, about five victims of the gang from the Computer Village in Ikeja, besieged the RRS headquarters at Alausa, Lagos to give information about how they were robbed.
Two of such victims who came forward on Thursday were Oluwaseyi Sunday and Alabede Habib.
Both of them in separate statement stated that Wilfred Ehis, who pretended to be “Barrister Deji”had sometime in February 2017 requested that expensive phones be delivered to him on two different addresses along the LASU– Iyana Iba Expressway.
The victims were later robbed by three of Ehis’s gang members operating on motorcycles at the delivery addresses
The sellers claimed they lost N800,000 and N450,000 to the robbery.
Items recovered from Ehis when he was arrested were mobile phones such as Tecno, LG 3, iPhone, two wristwatches, a Canon camera EO87D, necklace, Sony laptop, a wrap of Indian hemp and an ash-coloured Altima salon car.