Ex-DSS Officer, 9 Others In Police Net For Bullion Van Robbery
BY ONYEKACHUKWU IBEZIM – For robbing a bullion van and killing one of the occupants, a dismissed Department of State Services (DSS) officer, Prosper Israel, alongside his younger brother and eight other suspects are now cooling their feet in Police custody in Abia State
According to the Abia State Police Command, Prosper, his younger brother, Chinwendu Israel and the other suspects on July 26, 2022, attacked a bullion van escorted by the Police along Enugu-Port Harcourt Express, near Ntigha Junction in the Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of Abia State.
The report said in the confrontation that ensued between the armed gang and the Police, a cash officer, who accompanied the van, was killed on the spot.
The State Commissioner of Police (CP), Janet Agbede, who paraded the suspects at the Abia Command headquarters in Umuahia, said the sum of N10,184,000.00 was recovered from the gang.
CP Agbede said the suspects were nabbed following “a careful study of their modus operandi” after which the Command set up a special Intelligence Technologically-Led Investigation Squad with a clear mandate to arrest and recover weapons used by the deadly armed robbery gang.
She said among the suspects arrested are: “Adesoji Adeniyi aka ‘Soji’ (male) from Ondo State, resident and arrested in Lagos State; Nnamdi Nwaosu aka ‘Prophet’ from Rivers State, resident and arrested in Imo State; and Nwachukwu Albert aka White (1st Armourer) from Delta State, resident and arrested in Lagos State.”
Others include; “Felix Ajalaja from Ondo State, resident and arrested in Rivers State; Moshood Opeyemi aka Abiola from Osun State, resident and arrested in Rivers State; Matthew Christmas aka Aluwa from Delta State, resident and arrested in Delta State; Azubuike Amaefula aka Zubby from Abia State, resident and arrested in Rivers State; and Monday Samuel aka MD (2nd Armourer) from Delta State, resident and arrested in Ondo State”.
The Police boss further stated that exhibits recovered from the suspects include one General purpose Machine Gun with 53 rounds of live ammunition, 13 AK47 rifles with 1,749 live ammunition, two improvised explosive dynamite, one cut-to-size double barrel gun with five live cartridges, and 84 AK47 magazines.
Other listed items are; A Mercedes Benz mini truck they used in concealing their firearms and cash of 10 million, one hundred and eighty-four thousand Naira (N10,184,000.00) only.
The Police Commissioner also said; “All the above-mentioned suspects in their individual voluntary statements confessed belonging to a 14-man awful armed robbery gang with a speciality in bullion van attacks and that for about two months before the attack, the bullion van had been under their surveillance”.
She urged parents, guardians, husbands, wives and children to always know the sources of one another’s livelihood as a way of checking and curbing bad behaviour in society.
In a confessional statement, Prosper said he was forced into criminality following his dismissal from the DSS in 2007 after serving at Government House, Umuahia, the Abia State capital that same year.
