‘How we hijacked 33,000-litre fuel tanker’

Oyo State Police Command, yesterday, paraded some suspects, who specialised in hijacking fuel-laden tankers along Oyo-Ilorin Expressway, Ogbomoso, at gunpoint. One of the suspects, Dauda Akanji, 42, narrated how they operate to newsmen at the Police headquarters at Eleyele, Ibadan, saying they had successfully hijacked two petrol-laden tankers in the past before they were caught by the police last week.



He said: “We had successfully hijacked two trucks in the past along this same road. Whenever the six of us sight an unsuspecting truck laden with petrol, we make sure we pursue the driver after which one of us will climb the truck and demobilise the pedal. “Thereafter, the drivers will have no choice but to stop and on sighting us they run away, leaving behind the keys to the truck. We then drive the trucks to where we sell the products to our receivers.” Akanji added that he was led into the act out of frustration, as he was not doing well in his spare parts business. During the parade, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Leye Oyebade, said the suspects were arrested after they had snatched an Iveco truck with number plates XT 643 FKJ at Gbede Village, Ogbomoso, adding that they also carried out series of other robbery operations along the same road in the past.

ATM card fraudster

Also paraded yesterday was one Joshua Adejumo, 38, who was found with different 14 Automated Teller Machine, ATM, cards. He was nabbed by operatives of the command after a complaint was lodged against him by a victim at the Iyaganku Police Station. Oyebade said: “Joshua, in his usual manner, approached one Abosede Ganiyu, a sales girl, who had gone to withdraw money from the ATM of a commercial bank at Dugbe and offered to render assistance to the victim. “While pretending to help, he deceived his victim into believing that the card had been seized by the machine, but cleverly hid it only to use the same card to withdraw N214,000 from the savings account of one Temitope, who had sent her sales girl to make some withdrawal for her.” However, the suspect, Joshua, who claimed to be a commercial driver, said: “Someone did it to me. That was why I started doing it. Whenever I see anyone come to the ATM and cannot operate the machine, I offer assistance to them. “I will then say their ATM card is stuck in the machine. The unsuspecting customer proceeds into the banking hall to complain and I would, thereafter, withdraw money from the customer’s account. “I do not get a lot of money from this act. The money I get I use to maintain myself.”