Three suspected members of a notorious child theft syndicate have been tracked down by crack detectives of the Ogun State Police Command, just as the alleged leader of the gang was traced to an Ondo prison, where she is being remanded, ostensibly over a similar case.
It was gathered that the syndicate, whose modus operandi was to carry out a surveillance of areas where their age-target of children were concentrated, following which, two members of the syndicate, a man and a woman, would pretend as a married couple in search of an apartment.
With this trick, it was learnt, hardly did any members of the neighborhood where the child theft scenarios suspected their ulterior motive. These, they did and successfully made away with eight children unchallenged.
Meanwhile, three out of the eight stolen children have been recovered and united with their parents, while efforts were said to be on to get the remaining five from the strong-hold of the thieves.
Narrating Police success story of the gangsters’ arrests and recovery of the three children, the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, stated in a press release made available to Crimepuzzle that, “Operatives of the Anti-kidnapping/Cultist Unit, who were mandated to track the syndicate, embarked on a high technical investigation, which paid off with the tracking of the group leader, one Mary Paul, in an Ondo prison.
“Through synergy with Ondo Police Command, relevant information was extracted, leading to the arrest of three members of the gang, who actively participated in the theft of eight children across the State”, the statement revealed.
According to the release, investigation further revealed that the victims, stolen from different locations in the State, were sold to their prospective buyers in Anambra State, resulting to the Command’s resolve to launch a serious manhunt for the syndicate.
Oyeyemi gave the names of the suspects as Kate Njoku (F); Joy Okorie (F) and Onyeka Joseph (M), stating that one of the recovered children, Temidayo Ajayi, was abducted with his brother in Sagamu since July 2018.
According to the PPRO, the said Temidayo’s brother was still being sought for by the Police, adding that the suspects had all made useful statements to the Police on how they perpetrated the wicked act.
Meanwhile, according to the police image maker, “the Commissioner of Police, Bashir Makama, has ordered a thorough investigation into the case with a view to bringing other members of the syndicate to book. He equally appealed to parents to take the security of their children seriously by not leaving their wards to the care of a total stranger”.