Abia State Command of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) on Wednesday said that its personnel arrested two female armed robbery suspects, 41 others including a female child trafficker.
The command said that the suspects were arrested in the last six weeks.
Disclosing this in Umuahia, the state commissioner of police, CP Janet Agbede said apart from the three female suspects who were arrested for armed robbery and child trafficking respectively, the other 40 suspects were male suspects apprehended from different parts of the state for various offences including armed robbery, kidnapping, and cultism.
Agbede, giving the breakdown said out of the total number, two of the suspects were hired assassins, three, kidnap suspects, armed robbery suspects were seven, child trafficker was one while the rest were arrested for alleged cultism.
The CP said the arrested female suspects specialized in robbing their victims of their motorcycles at gunpoint in collaboration with their male friends.
Revealing the method of operation of the ladies, CP Agbede said they would ask a motorcyclist to take them to a particular point, but when they would get to where their male collaborators hid, they would pretend as if they reached their destination, they would ask the motorcycle operator to stop and immediately the unsuspecting bike operator would be disposed of his motorcycle at gunpoint.
Agbede said that one Sunday Okoro from Ubahu, Okigwe in Imo state identified the suspects to have dispossessed him of his Red Qlink motorcycle.
The Commissioner of Police equally disclosed that the child trafficker, Ihechi Ogbonna, 22, from Ohanze in Obingwa Local Government had on August 18, surreptitiously entered the house of one Benjamin Christopher at Amaukwu, Umuopara-Ozara Olokoro, Umuahia and used the wifeโs clothes to disguise herself as Christopherโs.
This made the two children of Christopher, Chidiebube, and Chinonso believe the impostor was their biological mother and followed her out of their house when she asked them.
The suspect was escaping with the two children when some youths intercepted her and immediately alerted a patrol team from Ubakala Division which arrested her and rescued the children.
The suspect confessed to the crime and police said efforts are being made to track down her accomplices.
Agbede also disclosed that one Uche from Amaogudu, Ahaba Imenyi, Isuikwuato Local Government Area had hired two men, Victor Mark Onyekachi,23, and Emmanuel Okorie,25, to assassinate one Mark Okorie Ogbonnaya from the same area.
After collecting the initial deposit from Uche, the alleged hired assassins were said to have equally collected money from Ogbonnaya, after which they disclosed to him what was on the offing and urged him to leave the area for at least three weeks for Uche to believe when they would tell him that he (Ogbonnaya) had been assassinated.
It was based on Ogbonnayaโs petition to the police that the two hired assassin suspects were arrested and the two phones they collected from their victim were recovered.
Agbede said all the suspects would be arraigned after police investigations.
