You don’t want your car to be stolen? Get security code---Car thieves suggest

Victor

Three men who specialised in opening cars with unusually designed keys and removing the cars from where they are parked have been arrested.

The three suspects said cars would continue to be removed from where they are parked by thieves, as long as motorists refused to take firmer precautions in safeguarding their vehicles.

The three suspects have been identified as Obinna Victor, 27, Fred Solomon and Rotimi AJanaku, 40.

Victor said: “Nigerians who have cars should buy better security code. They should use trackers and stop careless parking along the streets!”

Solomon added: “It’s true that some gangs take time to search for trackers in car they want to remove or had snatched, but we don’t have such time. We don’t like wasting time searching for trackers because its’ often too well hidden. But still, the best bet is to fix cars with trackers.”

Their arrest came just days after the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko revealed that  for the year 2013, vehicles snatched were about 254, those removed from park were 272 and those driven away by hired drivers were five. Among all these cars, police recovered a total of 919.

Manko had vowed to make sure his men work round the clock, to check car thieves in the state.

According to Manko from January to December 2012, about 1,314 cars were officially reported stolen. This means that those not reported may triple the reported cases.

In this statistics, Toyota Camry cars have been identified as the cars frequently targeted and stolen by criminals.

This is followed closely by Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord. Some of these vehicles were removed from worship centres.

Senior police officers in the command are presently working round the clock to know why these criminals target these sets of cars and to ensure that the occurrence are curtailed.

Meanwhile, the statistics further showed that between January to December 2012, 980 of the stolen vehicles were recovered.  About 729 were apparently snatched at gun points; while 577 were removed from the spots the owners parked them. About eight cars were driven away by the drivers who were employed by the owner.

The trio was arrested after a decoy team, deployed by the Officer in Charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, Lagos State, Mr. Abba Kyarri, posed as buyer one of the vehicles the gang had removed from where it was parked. Incidentally, the decoy team was led by a woman police, simply known by her codename ‘iron lady.’

Like so many other vehicles, the gang was able to remove the car, using the locally made master key.

After the police busted the gang, eight of such keys were recovered from them.

Victor was the person who went to sell a Honda Accord to the buyer, unaware that he was dealing with a policeman. He sold the car for N120.000.

When he went to collect his payment, he was surrounded by cops. Police used Victor as bait to catch Solomon and Ajanaku. Meanwhile police are still hunting for two other members of the gang. One of them is the leader of the gang.

Ajanaku confessed that he had stolen three Capstan Nissan vans, using the master key. Solomon said he had stolen only two vehicles; one capstan van and Toyota Camry. Obinna insisted that the Honda Accord was his first attempt.

The gang had also stolen a Rav4 jeep, which they took to one Alhaji at Benin Republic. The removal of the jeep was facilitated by the two members at large, whom the police said their names should not be mentioned since they were still being hunted.

According to Victor, the common name for the master key among gang members is, ‘suri.’

“I never knew that I was dealing with the police when I took that Honda Accord to sell. I got to know the buyer from another of our gang member who is still at large. When I gave the buyer the car, he promised to pay later. We didn’t see him for two weeks and his phone number was not going. Suddenly he called one day and said I should come to collect my money. That was how they arrested me.

“I was shocked when the buyer started mentioning the names of other gang members. People I knew he had not met.”

Solomon was quite angry with Victor for bringing policemen to his home. He said that Victor betrayed the trust he reposed on him. “It was because I trusted him that I took him to my house. When he was arrested, he now brought policemen to my house. And the truth of the matter is that I had already stopped this work since last year. I’m now working with a construction company and planned to marry soon. I’m a changed person.”

Solomon said that the master key could only, mostly open Capstan pickup model vans. The first one he removed from where it was parked, he sold it for just N100, 000. “It was because the money was so little, that I decided to quit. It was not worth the risk! I also discovered that the master key doesn’t open vehicles which most buyers used to request for,” said Solomon.

Victor and Solomon met in Kirikiri prisons.  Victor said he was arrested over cultism, while Solomon claimed that he was imprisoned for fighting.

According to Victor, he had gone to University of Calabar to write his post JAMB examinations, he however failed, but succeeded in becoming member of the cult group in the campus known as Vikings.

After prison, Victor said that he called Solomon one day, asking him how they would both survive.

“In prison, everyone was connecting and discussing how to join robbery gangs, but I told Solomon that I didn’t want anything that would involve guns,” said Victor.

Investigators discovered that Victor used to work with a guy name, ‘Aha boy.’ His job was to take cars stolen by Aha boy to one Alhaji, residing at Benin Republic.

On a particular day that Victor went to see Alhaji, he fell sick and was treated by the Alhaji. Along the line, the man asked him to be bringing his own cars, rather than depending on Aha boy alone.

A police source said: “Alhaji gave him a master key, but in Nigeria, Victor discovered that the key does not work properly. He contacted Solomon, who went to Ondo State to see Ajanaku. It was there Ajanaku gave him several of the keys. He also showed Ajanaku how to use the key. They stole one car in Ondo and brought it down to Lagos.”

Victor said that after Solomon quit the job of stealing, he had continued because, “I wanted to raise money to buy a farragone bus. I needed to survive and there was no job.”