A most wanted gang of notorious kidnappers known for kidnapping little children in Edo State, has been arrested by the Police.
The kidnap suspects
Edo State Police Command has bust a suspected notorious kidnap syndicate known for abducting underage children.
The gang has a camp in the bush near Benin city where they kept their victims before demanding for ransom. The alleged kingpin of the syndicate, Lucky Usifo, had been on the wanted list of the Police for over a period of time.
Usifo, called General by gang members told Daily Sun at the Police headquarters in Benin city that, “really, I am the gang leader. Mine was just to receive information about a prospective victim and I would organise the show. I work with insiders or close relatives of our victims.
“I prefer kidnapping children from five years below. They are easy to handle. Once you capture and give them assurance that you love them, they would be calm. I feed them with bobo, pap and noodles. Sometimes, they would make request for a choice of food but when you explain to them that you don’t have the money to buy the food, they would understand.
“The operation that put us in this mess was the kidnap of twin sisters. They are three years old. We abducted them on December 24, 2015 to create panic in their family. It was Frank that brought the deal.
"Frank lives in the same compound with the twins’ parents. He gave Paul the clue on how we could work on one Junior who would give us access to the compound. We really perfected the plans and picked the girls. We took them to our camp in the bush where we fed them with pap, soft drinks and biscuits."
“My anger is that Frank played over our intelligence, we demanded for N1million ransom and Frank went behind to collect the money. They did not give us a dime. Frank just used us to collect money from the victims’ family. We later realised that Frank and his sister had collected the ransom and warned the family to stop picking our calls.
“We were armed robbers before we went into kidnapping. We have just carried out two kidnappings. But we have carried out several robbery operations. I am from Igeduma, our hitman, Samuel Iredia is from Afuze in Edo State. Iredia is our driver also, but whenever there is need to confront the Police in gun duel, he is a professional. He is also useful whenever there is need to shoot our enemies.
"Osamuyi Idahosa is the guard, he keeps watch over our camp. Frank is from Agbor. He is just an informant. The lady in our gang is the person that feeds our victims”.
Edo State Commissioner Of Police, Mr Chris Ezike told Daily Sun that his command has dealt a heavy blow on the kidnappers and armed robbers in the State.
“The era of Kidnappers and armed robbers having a field day in Edo is gone. Our anti-crime strategies have made tremendous breakthroughs.
The suspects are the most wanted and deadliest in the state. It took our well-coordinated anti-kidnapping team time to arrest them. When we got their location and moved against them, they resisted and shot our policemen but we got them at last. I want to urge criminals to vacate this state because we would get them.
“We actually monitored these kidnappers and did a coordinated tracking of their telephone numbers and their location. We were careful to avoid harming the children. The children were rescued on January 2. The suspects had been terrorising Benin City for sometime before we nabbed them.”