Workers Arrested For Stealing Foreign Currency From Employer As Fire Razes Multi-billion Naira Warehouse

Some employees of LG Electronics at Abule Osun, Trade Fair, Lagos State have been arrested after they were accused of stealing foreign currencies belonging to their employers during a fire outbreak at the store in the early hours of Sunday, August 11.

The fire started shortly after midnight, destroying goods worth billions of Naira.

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency in a statement through its Head of Public Affairs Unit, Nosa Okunbor, stated that the agency received distress calls through its toll-free emergency lines at 12:15 am, with fire officials arriving 25 minutes later to extinguish the blaze.

Okunbor noted that the fire affected “equipment, small forklifts, household goods/gadgets, including TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioners, estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of naira.”

The statement added that the fire “has been contained” in collaboration with other emergency responders.

“The major warehouse has been severely damaged by the fire. However, through the effective collaborative efforts of the agency’s LRT, LRU Fire Unit, the Lagos State Fire & Rescue Service, the Federal Fire Service, and other primary responders, the fire has been contained and prevented from spreading to adjacent structures, including other warehouses, a gas station, diesel tankers, expatriate quarters, and other adjoining buildings,” the statement added.

However, as the fire spread, some workers allegedly used the opportunity to steal.

A worker who spoke to Punch at the scene of the blaze said a combined team of police and military men was deployed to the warehouse due to reports of theft by some of the workers.

He said, “We were in the store when some of our colleagues alerted us that a fire had started in a part of the store. We started looking for a way to stop the fire at that moment. While some of us were doing that, a few others broke into the offices and started stealing foreign currencies from our employers.”

Some of the alleged perpetrators caught in the act were interrogated by soldiers at the scene.

One of those arrested and identified simply as Ali Baba was seen being held by his trousers and briefly led outside the gate by the soldiers to identify some other suspects who were involved in the act.

“Ali Baba has been with the company for over a decade. He has a very close relationship with his employers. He was very young and it had been about 10 years when he arrived here before he rose to the position of a supervisor. The way he was handled by the soldiers showed he is among those held by the officers,” a customer who bought scraps from the warehouse told the publication.