Christopher Oji
A notorious armed robbery kingpin, Kunle, now in police net, has explained why his gang used to cut off their victims’ fingers and wrists.
Kunle, who was arrested by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Intelligence Response Team (IRT), led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, while confessing to the crimes at the Command Headquarters, Ikeja, yesterday, alongside five of his gang members, said he was the numero uno of the gang
According to him, “We operate at Agege and Aburo area of Iyana-Ipaja. We specialise in house-to-house raiding. We were not wicked when we started, but the people made us to become wicked. Victims were always deceiving us that they had no money at home. But our anger was that when we knock at our victims’ doors, they would hide their expensive phones and show the less expensive ones, so that when we request for their phones they would give us the less expensive ones. One day, my second in command suggested that we should start teaching them lessons by cutting their hands so that others would learn from it.
“We now bought sharp cutlasses, which we used in severing the hands of stubborn victims. On January 13, we raided Aboru community because we were broke. We were surprised that, each house we entered, they would present small Nokia phones, as if they planned it.
“We were surprised when we entered the house of a rich man who parked exotic cars in front of his compound. We requested for phones, he gave us small phones. We saw the expensive wedding ring on his finger. But, he was behaving as if it was too difficult for him to remove from his fingers, Tunde said we should hold him and he cut off his three fingers and removed the ring.
“Immediately the wife saw what happened, she quickly removed her own. When we saw how the game worked out well for us, we went back to other victims that gave us small phones and gave them machete cuts in their hands, fingers or wrist and we continued the raid in other houses. Those who gave us big phones and laptops were spared. We cut off the hands and wrists of over 20 persons on that day.
“We did it for future purposes so that the news of how merciless we were would spread so that when we came next time, people would bring out their money. How could it be said that people no longer use expensive phones. Those who dared us regretted their actions; while those who were honest were happy they surrendered their phones. We bought our guns from Tunde, who we settled each time we went for robbery operations. Tunde bought the guns from a member of a local vigilante outfit. I don’t know the arrangement between the man and Tunde. We thought that the guns were expensive, but we later discovered that he bought them for N20, 000 each.”
Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Muazu, said that based on reliable information, detectives from IRT, led by CSP Philip Rieninwa, and those from the State Special Anti-Robbery Squad, led by CSP Peter Gana, moved in and arrested the receiver of the gang’s stolen goods.
He said that it was the receiver who took the police to arrest members of the syndicate.
“Over 85 phones and 33 Laptops were recovered from the receiver of the stolen items. The case would be charged to court at the end of investigation,” he added.