Why we broke into shops at Alaba market – Suspects
Two robbery suspects that operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Lagos State Command, arrested allegedly for breaking into shops at the Alaba International Market, Ojo, have confessed that some traders used them as thugs to settle market disputes. The police said the suspects, Chidozie Onyebuchi, 39, and Ifeanyi Odo, 42, told the SARS team […]
Suspected cultists with items allegedly recovered
Two robbery suspects that operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Lagos State Command, arrested allegedly for breaking into shops at the Alaba International Market, Ojo, have confessed that some traders used them as thugs to settle market disputes.
The police said the suspects, Chidozie Onyebuchi, 39, and Ifeanyi Odo, 42, told the SARS team they were on the payroll of some market leaders who had contracted them to silence any opposition in the market.
Onyebuchi and Odo admitted they started their journey into crime as thieves before they graduated into armed robbery and contract thugs feared by all in the market.
Onyebyuchi, who the police paraded with Odo and about 300 other suspects at the Command Headquarters, Ikeja, yesterday, said, “I started as a petty thief in the market around 2015. I later graduated
into full-time robbery when I met Ifeanyi. We used to sleep in the market. That was how we got to know how to sneak into shops at night and move things.
“We mostly broke into electronic shops. We then resell items we stole to electronics dealers outside the market.”
The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Hakeem Odumosu, who paraded the suspects, disclosed that on August 4, 2020, SARS operatives arrested Onyebuchi and Odo for breaking into shops and warehouses at the Alaba International Market, where they allegedly stole goods worth millions of naira.
“Items recovered from them included 43 sets of 32-inch plasma LG television and a bag containing some beads, which they had stolen from a warehouse at the market. They confessed to have been in the unlawful business for over three years. Investigation is ongoing and they will be charged to court as soon as investigation is completed,” Odumosu added.