Luck has ran out on three notorious armed robbers specialize in forcing their victims to the ATM for withdrawal.
The suspects
The police have arrested three robbery suspects, Ayomide Babatunde, 30; Tunde Shabi, 37, and Femi Adeolu, 27, described as specialists in taking their victims to ATM machines to withdraw money from their accounts.
They were arrested by the Lagos annex office of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT).
The suspects are also said to be ex-convicts.
They were arrested after they allegedly attacked some persons including a woman and transferred millions of naira from their victims’ bank accounts using their ATM cards and handsets.
Besides,they are alleged to have snatched their victims’ cars which they drove to Cotonou in Benin Republic to sell off.
Ayomide who claims to be from Ekiti and a father of three children said he could not go beyond secondary school on account of the death of his father.
“To be able to fend for myself, I became an estate agent but I was arrested when I joined Aye confraternity due to unending bloody clashes with rival cult groups,” he told his interrogators.
“I was eventually charged to court and sent to prison.
“In the prison I met Ola, Tunde and others. We formed a car snatching gang when I came out of the prison.
“We had three pistols, one Beretta pistol and two locally made short guns. I bought the guns in Cotonou,Benin Republic, when I went there to sell the stolen cars. It was our receiver in Cotonou that helped us to buy the guns.
“I have operated more than five times. Our first victim was a woman. In March 2018 we were trekking along Kola in Alagbado area of Lagos and saw one woman who wanted to enter her house. We then followed her and robbed her. We collected her bag , phones and two ATM cards.
“We first took her to ATM gallery and forced her to withdraw money for us. We also collected his pin number and transferred one million to the gang’s bank current accounts.
“We drove off to Cotonou in her Toyota Highlander Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and gave the car to our standby receiver simply addressed as Oga Azeez to sell for us.
“When she wanted to shout we calmed her down. We also held her hostage for 12 hours to enable us do another transfer of one million naira.
“We drove to Oju-Ore (Ota,Ogun State) along Idiroko road to while away time. “The purpose was to allow for 12 hours before another transfer could be done. We however succeeded in transferring another one million naira.
“I gave five vehicles to Gani who is one of the receivers we have in Cotonou. We stopped at Atan, a community after the popular Winners Church and waited for another 12 hours before making another transfer of one million naira.
”When we searched the woman’s bag we saw only N50,000 cash. We transferred the sum of N2million to our members who are still in Kirikiri prison.
“I gave N600, 000 to the owner of the account we used in transferring the money. We gave N200, 000 to the person who went to withdraw the money in prison. We shared the remaining N1.2 million. I did not save a dime because of my life style; I slept in hotel with women almost on a daily basis
“I sold the Toyota Highlander SUV for N600,000, Formatic Benz-N900,000; Toyota Camry car , N300,000; Toyota Camry( big daddy) car N500,000; Lexus SUV 350; N600,000; Toyota Muzzle N600,000; Toyota Corolla N400,000, among others.’’