The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has arrested members of a suspected “one chance” kidnapping and robbery syndicate, recovering the N8.8m ransom allegedly collected from a female victim after her abduction in Abuja.
The command disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday and during a briefing by the Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Sanusi, saying operatives of its tracking unit dismantled the gang after sustaining surveillance that led to the recovery of the full ransom and the arrest of the suspects.
According to the police, the victim was abducted after boarding a vehicle operated by the syndicate, which initially demanded a higher ransom before collecting N8.8m from her family and later releasing her.
Speaking during the briefing, the FCT Police Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, said the command had intensified efforts to stamp out “one chance” crimes following directives from the commissioner of police.
“Like you all know, FCT residents have been battling with issues of one-chance activities within the FCT and the Commissioner of Police has charged all the additional police officers to ensure that they bring an end to one-chance activities,” she said.
Adeh said the command received a distress call after the victim was abducted and immediately deployed its tracking unit to monitor the phone used by the kidnappers to negotiate with the victim’s family.
“So on Saturday… we received a distress call that a certain young lady was being abducted by this particular gang. Our CP tracking unit started tracking the phone of the victim that was being used to contact the family,” she said.
She added, “They collected the sum of N8.8m and released the victim. But we still continued tracking this syndicate and… arrested the whole syndicate, recovering the N8.8m that was taken from this victim.”
The police said investigations revealed that the gang deliberately targeted women.
According to Adeh, “They will tell you they picked mostly women because women don’t struggle.”
During the parade of the suspects, one of them admitted that women were deliberately targeted.
Asked why the gang preyed mainly on women, the suspect replied, “Because they are not struggling.”
The suspect also admitted that the gang had extorted different sums from previous victims, saying, “The first one is N500,000… the third one is N1.5m… the fourth one is N2m. Then this fifth one is N8.8m.”
Another female suspect confirmed that her boyfriend drove the operational vehicle used in the crimes.
When asked who the driver was, she responded, “He’s my man.”
The suspect also admitted that one of the two vehicles recovered by the police was used specifically for “one chance” operations.
“I use one for the one chance,” she said.
Police said exhibits recovered from the suspects included the N8.8m ransom, two vehicles allegedly used for the operations, mobile phones and other items believed to have been stolen from victims.
The command said investigations were ongoing and the suspects would be charged to court upon conclusion of the investigation.
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