Two females who are armed robbery suspects and 41 others including a female child trafficker have been arrested by police officers as disclosed by Abia State Police Command on Wednesday.
According to the police command, the suspects were arrested in the last six weeks.
The state commissioner of police, Janet Agbede disclosed in Umuahia that 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 further disclosed that 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 police commissioner 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 wife’s clothes to disguise herself as Christopher’s.
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 era.
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 them when they would tell him that he (Ogbonnaya) had been assassinated.
It was based on Ogbonnaya’s 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.