‘I didn’t know I was buying stolen goods’

ON May 22, journalists and onlookers at the Eleyele headquarters of the Oyo State Police Command beheld four suspects arrested in connection with hijacked cement trucks with surprise as they listened to how one of them said he did not know he was buying stolen products, which was being sold to him at the rate of N1,000 per bag against the known factory price of N1450.
Police source told Crime Reports that the operational system of the group was to trail trucks loaded with consignment of cement bags from the factory and rob the driver and other occupants at gunpoint, after which the hijacked trucks would be driven to an unknown destination. After the bags of cement would have been offloaded, the truck would then be abandoned by the side of the road.
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ibadan was said to have received an information about the activities of the hijackers on March 15 when a truck loaded with 600 bags of cement was reportedly hijacked from the driver at Iwo Road area of Ibadan by six armed gang members.
Indabawa said that during their confession, the four suspects  told SARS operatives that the second operation they carried out was at Muslim area of Ibadan on March 25 when a truck loaded with 600 bags of cement was taken from the driver and handed over to Hammed and Ogunmola in Oyo. After discharging the goods, the truck was reportedly hidden along an abandoned road.
Their latest attempt was the hijack of another truck load of 600 cement bags at Monatan area of the city which was also taken to Oyo town.  Acting on all the information, SARS operatives, who had already been on a discreet investigation, arrested one Seun Ogundele and Femi Johnson in connection with the hijacking.
The truck was also trailed to Oyo where the receiver, Ogunmola, was caught and all the 600 cement bags recovered from him. Speaking with journalists at a press briefing recently, the Commissioner of Police in Oyo state, Mr Mohammed Indabawa, said that the confession of the first two suspects led to the arrest of two others, whose names he gave as Tajudeen Hammed and Bode Ogunmola. Both were said to be residents of Oyo town.
Saying that the three trucks had been recovered by the police and handed over to their owners on bond, the police commissioner told Crime Reports that the suspects would soon be charged to court. Below is the confession made by each of the suspects during an interview with Crime Reports.

Bode Ogunmola
I didn’t know Tajudeen was stealing the cement bags. He would just come to me to sell. I had transacted business with him three times. Each time, he brought 600 bags of cement which he sold to me at the rate of N1000 each. The factory price is about N1450. I was selling for N1500. We started business together in March 2013. I didn’t have any problem with the initial two transactions until the third one.  I discovered that the products were stolen after my arrest. The products have been recovered from me.

Femi Johnson
I am a driver in Ibadan. We hatched a plan to start removing trailers loaded with cement bags from where they are parked. I planned with Tajudeen and he was the one who got a buyer.
The reason for this was that we didn’t have any job to do again. We are not hijackers, we just use our experience to steal them from where they are parked. We usually move around the city to locate trailers parked by the drivers on the roadside for one reason or the other. What we do is to disconnect the wires from the ignition and join them together to kickstart without a key. The three trailers we had hijacked before our arrest were removed from Muslim, Iwo road and Monatan areas.
Since we started in March, I have realised about N300,000. We sold the first one for N600,000 and four of us – Biggie, Idowu, FM and I – shared it. Same thing happened the second time but we were yet to be paid fully for the third supply when we were arrested by the police. We had collected N400,000 and were going to collect the balance when the police apprehended us.
I got about N130,000 from the N400,000.

Seun Ogundele (31)
I am married with four children. I am a truck driver. My role was to drive the cement trucks. I knew Femi Johnson in January this year. I was given N100,000 for the first operation while I got N115,000 for the second one. I had not been given anything for the third one before I was arrested. I only learnt at SARS that they had collected N400,000.
Tajudeen Hammed
I am from Ilorin in Kwara State but reside in Oyo town. I am married with five children. I am into the business of supplying millet. I knew Femi through his brother who told me that they used to get cement bags to sell. Femi then called me that he had cement to sell and we bought them from him. He was selling to us for N1000 and we bought so that we could make some gains since it was cheap.  We have now realised that we err against the law by buying stolen goods.
TRIBUNE