As part of efforts to ensure a crime-free Lagos and guaranteeing safety of lives and properties, the operatives of Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of Lagos State Police Command, have apprehended two suspects.
The suspects who operated at Abule-Oja in Yaba, specialised in stealing handsets and valuable items inside shops of innocent members of public.
Identified as Ufoma Asakpa, 22, and Augustine Omedo, 20, were caught in the act, on Tuesday October 13th, about 18:22 pm, after they had successfully stolen three handsets from a particular shop in the area.
The two suspects revealed that they have stolen about 70 phones in this year, and they identified their buyer simply as Alfa who owns a shop at Boundary in Ajegunle.
According to the Commander of the RRS, Assistant Commissioner of Police, ACP Olatunji Disu, “Our policemen who were on patrol around Yaba axis got a distress call from their victims informing them that there were thieves who just robbed them of their valuables.
The suspects were chased by Policemen in a bid to escape on a motorcycle popularly known as Okada.
Police added that their preliminary investigation indicated that the two suspects specialized in stealing phones and other valuable items under the pretense of buying products from any shop they visited.
The suspect Ufoma and Augistine confirm that their tricks was to disguise as buyers of goods, and once they found out that the seller is sleeping or off their sights, they will pick their phones, money bags and other valuables”, he added.
The Delta state born Omedo said “Poverty lured us to take up stealing” regretting committing the act saying “my parents must not know that I have been caught for stealing.”
For Ufoma, his accomplice, who lives at 10, Kehinde Street, Ajegunle in Lagos, regretted that bad friendship lured him into stealing.
“When I entered the shop pretending to buy a sachet of water and cooked rice. I saw a phone while charging in that shop. I took the phone and switched it off immediately. My partner had also gone to another shop to steal phones too. We had successfully stolen those phones, before we were arrested by RRS men .
The owner of the shop, Mr. Oluwole Allen, who followed them to the Police’s Headquarters, said that he never had any inkling that the two suspects were phone thieves when they entered his shop.
“The two of them entered with the hope of buying sachet water. I stood up to attend to them unknowingly to me that one of them had stolen my phone. The other guy went to another shop to do the same before he was caught in the process,” he narrated