The Police on Tuesday arrested a commercial driver for allegedly conspiring with criminal gangs to kidnap the passengers he genuinely loaded from a motor park.
The Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Mr Frank Mba, disclosed this during a media briefing in Abuja.
He said the suspect, who “delivers” innocent citizens to kidnappers, operates on the major highways in the North East and North West in contact with multiple kidnapping gangs.
“What he does is that sometimes, he goes to the motor park, present his vehicle and pretends to be an innocent hardworking transporter.
“He will patiently wait for passengers to board his vehicle and once he has enough of these passengers, he moves from the park.
“He establishes communication with members of other kidnapping gangs and bandits along his way and once he gets to a comfortable area, these gang members will intercept his vehicle and kidnap all his passengers,” he said.
Mba said the suspect was among the 34 suspects, consisting of 32 males and two females arrested by the police over various criminal offences.
He said the suspects had clearly been linked to offences of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery culpable homicide, kidnapping, unlawful passion of prohibited weapons and car theft.
The FPRO said two AK47 riffles, one pump action, two dean guns, three revolver pistols and four berretta pistols with their accompany magazines were recovered from the suspects.
He said other exhibits recovered were a total of 389 live ammunition of AK47, 30 pieces of type 06 ammunition, five tear gas canastas, 11 grenade and two units of anti tracking devices.
Mba said the anti tracking device had the capacity to effectively block all forms of wireless communication transmission in a stolen vehicle.
According to him, the equipment has the capacity to block cellular networks, satellite phones, blue tooth and all kinds of communication between a stolen car and tracking companies or network providers.
Mba said 11 of the suspects were members of a kidnap gang consisting of nine males and two females who had carried out multiple kidnap operations.
He said the two females play very crucial roles of helping the gang members to move their weapon from one part of the country to another.
“They do so, hiding under their gender, mode of dressing, innocence that is naturally associated with the womanhood,” he said.
