Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Police arrest 7 over Lagos Airport robbery, police killings

THE police in Lagos State have arrested seven people in connection with the March 13 armed robbery operation at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

Eighteen officers of the Lagos State Special Anti Robbery Squad, who burst the armed robbery gang, have been commended by the Inspector General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar.

A cache of arms and ammunition including five AK 47, four dynamites, two locally made pistols,  64 AK 47 riffle magazines, all fully loaded with thirty rounds, totaling 1,920 live ammunition  and assorted charms were recovered from the gang.

The police also recovered a Toyota Sienna space wagon bus with the registration no BDG 918 AG, which served as the operational vehicle as well as the armoury of the gang.

The state police boss, Umar Manko, while speaking with newsmen on Tuesday, said the arrested suspects were apprehended in Ogun, Oyo, Osun  and other neighbouring states.

The gang was also allegedly said to be responsible for a similar operation at the airport, when about N600,000 was carted away by the bandits.

Manko gave the names of the arrested armed robbers as Ibikunle Olanrewaju, Toba Adeniyi, Ibraheem Abdullai, Kazeem Aderibigbe, Saheed Adekunle, Christian Joshua and Saheed Okunola.

He said “all the suspects confessed to the armed robberies at the airport and several other deadly robberies in Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Kwara states. “

The Lagos police boss listed some of the robbery operations of the gang to include the robberies at the Oro, Kwara State branches of FirstBank and Union Bank in January 2013, FirstBank and Wema Bank robberies in Ikirun, Osun State in December 2012 and the bullion van robbery  in Odogbolu, Ogun State in January 2013 as well as the robbery at MMIA in February, 2012.

One of the arrested suspects, Ibraheem Abdullai, was identified as a trolley pusher at the airport and he was allegedly provided the armed robbers with the information with which the robbery operations were executed.

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