Sources disclosed that the arrest of
the suspects came, following several complaints from residents of the Garden
City to the Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim, over incessant cases of
kidnappings within the City. The IGP was said to have deployed his operatives
at the Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, led by CSP Abba Kyari to the
streets of PortHarcourt to bring activities of ?the gang to an end
They were said to have accosted the
gang after it has successfully kidnapped a middle-aged woman penunitmate
Tuesday and was heading for their den. The operatives engaged the gang and
forced them into abandoning their victim and to flee the scene. Sources said
the rescued woman ?gave the operatives a vivid description of the vehicle used
by the gang and the IRT operatives went all out in search of the vehicle. The
driver and the vehicle were later apprehended. Daniel Gabriel, the driver led
the operatives to his house in Navy Market in Borokiri, where five other members
of his gang were meeting to organize another kidnapping operation. Their arrest
also led to the arrest of three other members of the gang including the gang’s
armourer Marshal. Confessions of the suspects When Crime Guard interviewed,
Daniel Grabrel a native of Idiangba in Ikote-Ekpene Local Government Area of
Akwa-Ibom State, he said; ” I am 33-year-old and I am married with two
children. I came to Port-Harcourt in 2005 and I am taxi driver but when things
became difficult for me, I moved my family back to my home and in that process,
I joined my first kidnapping gang. I met my gang members in March 2016, I was
plying the Aba Road looking for passengers when they stopped me and entered
into my taxi. They asked me to take them to Borikiri area of Port-Harcourt Town
and when we arrived, they paid me more than I demanded and I told them that I
wanted to know more about them. The leader who sat with me in front, gave me
his phone number and said he would like me to work with them. Few days later,
they invited me to a hotel in Borikiri and then they opened up to me on what
they were into. By April, Blackiee, the gang leader, called and asked that I
should meet him at his hotel and when I got there, I met him and his boys and
they were all prepared for an operation. They brought out two bags containing
rifles and they dumped in my car and we moved into GRA in Portharcourt. On
arriving the spot, we got a call from our informant that we had missed our
target as she left the scene before we arrived. But on our way out we spotted a
man driving a posh car and we kidnapped him and took him to Indoki Estate
Waterfront, from where he was moved via a speed boat to our camp which was
across the river. We did several kidnappings after I joined the gang but in
August 2015, the second in command to the gang called me and said that, our
informant had a job for us and we went for it and we kidnapped the woman, but
on our way, my car developed a fault and it stopped. Blackiee called another
taxi and they transferred the woman into it, but on the waterside, police
intercepted them and the woman was rescued, but they all escaped. The gang
leader Blackiee escaped with one other rifle and gave it to one of our boys who
normally keeps our rifles, but after I was arrested, I took the police to the
boy and they recovered the rifle and my cab.” Another suspect Efiye Anda, a
native of Southern Ijaw area of Bayelsa State, said he got two N200, 000
ferrying the kidnappers and their victims to their camps which was across the
river in his speed boat. He said; “I was formerly into oil bunkering but the
camp where we scooped our oil has been destroyed by the military and when I had
nothing doing, my friends invited me to Port Harcourt to do kidnapping jobs.
After taking them to their camps each time they kidnapped somebody, they
normally call me to help buy food for them and their victims. I have been paid
N200, 000 since I started and I bought a speed boat with the money.” The
32-year-old, Marshal, who is the gang’s armorer and native of Opop-Ngoro Local
Government Area of Rivers State, confessed that the gang paid him only N40,000
to keep their rifles for him.
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