I took to crime to satisfy my fiancée-Suspected car snatcher, kidnapper

Juliana Francis

A suspected criminal, identified as Victor Francis, has told how he took to crime because he wanted desperately to impress and take care of the lady he was love with and intended to marry.

Francis, who was once an ex-convict, is presently now at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, Lagos State, for being in possession of stolen cars and partaking in kidnapping.

Policemen had to go undercover, tailing and trailing him before he was arrested. Policemen had further tricked him, by posing as buyers of stolen cars, to Airport Hotel. The suspect had seen many people eating and drinking at the Airport Hotels, it never dawned on him that they were all policemen until it was late and they had surrounded him like fleas all over a dog.

Narrating how he became a guest at the Kirikiri Prisons, before his eventual release, Francis said he was arrested and charged to court for diverting a trailer load of bags of rice valued at millions of naira. He was found guilty and sentenced to prisons.

Rather than the prisons to reform Francis, he joined a man, identified as Chika, serving sentence for robbery, to plan further crimes.

He became friendly with Chika. When he was leaving prisons, both of them exchanged phone numbers.

 According to his confessions, he and Chika and indeed other convicts had access to phones in prisons.

Francis explained that after prisons, he had tried several times to get a job, all to no avail. He was still in this quest, when he suddenly received a call from Chika. Apparently, Chika had also been released from prisons.

After the phone conversation, Francis went to Ajegunle Boundary, to meet Chika. On that first day, Chika simply gave him food and some money.  Francis further revealed that soon after they started interacting, Chika talked him into kidnapping a woman.

He said: “One day, we kidnapped a woman at Ikorodu area. She was driving a Toyota Yaris. She begged us not to kill her. She said she would do whatever we asked her to do. We were four that went for that operation. It was only Chika I knew. The other two men were brought by Chika. We contacted the woman’s family and later collected a ransom of N4 million. After collecting the money, we allowed her to go but we took her Toyota Yaris. My share of the money was N700, 000. Chika later instructed me to sell the car.”

After trying for three days to sell the car, without succeeding, Francis called Chika’s phone to alert of the problem, but the number was not going. He began to fear that Chika might have gone for an operation, where he was killed by the police.

Francis decided to go underground. He ran to Kaduna. After awhile in Kaduna, he started using the car. But before that, he had changed the registration number and body colour of the car. He soon came back to Lagos.

A few days after he came back to Lagos, his phone rang and it turned out to be Chika. He couldn’t believe his ears.

Francis said: “When Chika called me, the first thing that came to my mind was that Chika had been arrested by SARS and was trying to lure me into police net. Chika said I should meet him at a filling station, at Sango-Ota. He asked me about the car, I told him it was intact.

“After thinking, I decided to go to the filling station. Two men were with Chika. One was wearing a jalabi and the other was in a safari suit. Chika introduced them as Richard and Prince. Chika said they would be working together with us. Chika said Prince and I should step aside and talk. Even then, I was still thinking Chika had set me up. Prince told me that he would be supply me vehicles to sell for him. He gave me an MTN phone number. He instructed me never to speak with anybody on that line except him. He also told me that he would never send anybody to contact me. Thus, there would never be a third party between us in our business dealing. We parted.”

Three days later, Prince called Francis, instructing him to meet him somewhere at Ikeja. Prince asked him to come without any car.

On getting to Anifowose, the designated venue, Francis saw Prince with a stranger.

“Prince only told me to look at a car. The doors of the car where all opened. He said I should take it,” recalled Francis. “It was a Peugeot 607 car. Almost brand new. I drove the car to Minna, to meet one Alhaji whom I used to sell cars to.  I handed the Peugeot to Alhaji. He took the car, but did not pay me. He only gave me transport money and asked me to come back.”

Francis said that before his arrest by SARS, he had delivered four cars to Alhaji and had been paid for only two. One of the cars the Alhaji paid for was a Honda Accord car (End of Discussion). He paid N400, 000 for it. He also paid N700,000 for the Peugeot 607.

Francis also confessed to have taken a stolen vehicle to Onitsha to sell and a new hummer bus to Benin. He said that the new hummer bus was stolen from Apapa and taken to car dealer stand in Benin. The bus was stolen by Prince from where it was parked at Apapa. Prince warned him never to take the bus to Apapa area of Lagos State.

Francis said: “I paid Prince for the Peugeot 607. I however lied to him that Alhaji had not paid me for any other car. Prince gave me N200, 000. He was angry with me. He said I sold the Peugeot 607 too cheap. Since then, Prince would be calling, asking me if Alhaji had not paid me for the other vehicles with him. I stopped picking his calls. Prince threatened to deal with me if I did not bring his money.”

On January 6, 2014, Francis said he had received a call from a stranger, telling him that Prince said he should provide a vehicle for him.

“As soon as the man called, I tried calling Prince’s phone number, but it was not going. The caller said I should come and meet him at Airport Hotel, Ikeja.  When we met at Airport Hotel, he asked me to sit and offered to buy me food, but I refused. I asked him if he knew Richard, he said yes. He told me that Prince would soon show up.

“He gave me a paper. As I opened the paper, he brought out a bundle of money. As he was giving me the money, he suddenly grabbed me. I started to struggle with him. Two men, who had been busy, seriously eating their food, suddenly pounced on me. The next things I saw were leg and hand chains. I saw other men with guns. They were all policemen. That was how I surrendered to the policemen.

“My greatest regret is in forgetting Prince’s warning: He told me that he would never send anybody to me. He said he would contact or come to see me himself.”

It was gathered that SARS operative began trailing Francis after they arrested Prince for robbery and car snatching.

Francis further confessed that he took to crime, “Because of the girl I wanted to marry. I spent a lot of money on her. It was because of her that I diverted the trailer load of bags of rice. When the matter was charged to court, she disappeared.”