Six members of a seven-man gang who were using Badoo on the internet to lure victims into rape and robbery have been nabbed by the anti-robbery team attached to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Eleweran of the Ogun State Police Command. The young suspects were arrested on Tuesday January 28, 2014 at about 5p.m., a day after they robbed and raped a 33-year-old woman (name withheld) along Idiroko road.
The suspects’ names were given as Opeyemi Abisola (28), of no fixed address; Nnamdi Sunday (24), of new Ilaro Road, Papalanto; Tunde Adewumi; Olatunji Awe (24) of Babs Ayorinde, Orija Estate, Abule Iroko; Sunday Fayomi (23) of Abule Olodo and Michael Sunday (23), also of Abule Olodo, all in Ogun State, while one other member was said to be at large. Though five of them were initially arrested, Tunde Adewunmi was apprehended on Wednesday January 29.
According to information gathered by Crime Reports, the anti-robbery team, led by Sergeant Adebayo Oyesomi, was on routine patrol along Obada/Ewekoro/Ifo/Sango road when it sighted the victim by the road side at Papalanto on Monday, January 27. When interrogated, the woman revealed that she had just been released by the robbers who attacked her.
She narrated her ordeals in the hands of the hoodlums and volunteered to assist the police to apprehend the suspected armed robbers. The police team later arrested five of the suspects at Olodo area on Tuesday, January 28 after a rigorous search.
The woman revealed to the investigation team, led by the Officer-in Charge of the anti-robbery section, Emmanuel Oyewole, a Superintendent of Police, that she left Lagos for Idiroko on the fateful day, unknown to her that the occupants were ‘one chance’ people.
She said she was taken to an unknown destination at Olodo Village where the hoodlums beat her up thoroughly and took turns to rape her, after collecting a sum of N1,803,000, gold jewellery valued at N200,000 and a wrist watch valued at N5,000. Other items forcefully taken from the woman by the hoodlums were a mobile phone and blackberry with the total value put at N2,187,500.
She told the investigation team that her appeals to them not to have sex with her because she was HIV positive and other diseases, just to discourage them, were rebuffed. The woman also added that the young men brought out condoms and she had to put them on their manhood before they had sex with her so as to avoid being infected. She disclosed that any attempt by her to register their faces in her memory was met with slaps and severe beating, which resulted in bruises all over her face and body.
Fortunately for the woman, all the exhibits were recovered from the suspects.
The victim had also told the anti-robbery operatives that the suspects had wanted to kidnap her as they were asking her of relatives who are wealthy enough to pay a ransom for her release but said she kept on begging them that she was an orphan who was struggling to survive with her business.
Speaking with Crime Reports on the suspects’ arrests, the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Olumuyiwa Adejobi, disclosed that they had confessed to the crime but said that they met with their victim on Badoo. The leader of the gang, Opeyemi, said he chat the woman up on Badoo and invited her to have sex with her, promising to give her some money.
But when asked whether the agreement included his friends, even his claim was true, he had no defence. It was learnt that the six suspects had been begging the police authorities for forgiveness, saying that they never knew that their actions carried so much weight.
However, the PPRO said that they were undergoing further investigations at the State CID, Eleweran and that the Commissioner of Police, Ogun State, Mr Ikemefuna Okoye had ordered the arrest of the fleeing member of the armed gang without delay.
“The CP also commended the victim for her sense of alertness which made it possible for her to identify the hoodlums’ hideout and her courage which was exhibited in her readiness to assist the police,” the PPRO stated further these, he said, had helped in arresting the suspects.
