Monday, September 25, 2017

‘I buy phones from robbers, sell as London used’



Operatives of Rapid Response Squad (RRS) Ikeja, Lagos State Police Command have arrested a phone dealer who specialised in buying stolen mobile phones from armed robbers and resell them to unsuspecting members of the public.


Singing like a bird after his arrest, Jamiu Adebayo, 30, said: “If I tell you that I don’t know these phones are stolen phones and that some of those I get the phones from are robbers, I would be lying to you. I know some of these phones were forcibly collected from people.
“I buy iPhone 7 with icloud N45, 000 and sell N55, 000. Those without icloud, I buy N150, 000 and sell N180, 000. I buy iPhone 6 N65, 000. I buy Samsung phones N22, 000 and sell N27, 000. I sell other phones too. I work on the phones and disguise them as London used phones.”

The suspect was tracked and arrested through an iPhone 7, belonging to Kolade Johnson, a banker, working at Lagos Island. He was arrested last week Tuesday

The victim, Johnson, on August 23, boarded a commercial bus around 5:45am, on his way to office, unaware it was the operational vehicle of ‘One Chance’ gang of robbers.
The robbers dispossessed him of a laptop and 2 phones, one of which was traced to Adebayo. The suspect was trying to sell it to a customer in Lagos Island.

Police also recovered six additional iPhones, four assorted phones and three MTN SIM packs, from the suspect. He told police that he got all the items from armed robbers.

Adebayo, a former National Union of Road Transport Worker (NURTW) member in Ajah, stated that he went into sale of clothes after he raised some money. He would later divert to sales of fairly used phone.

According to him, he used to buy stolen phones from three people who he was aware are members of armed robbery gangs.
He further said: “It’s not up to a year that I started selling fairly used phones. Whenever some men come to my shop to buy clothes, they would be talking about buying fairly used phones. I started assisting them to ‘get’ phones. This was like three years ago.”

Adebayo continued: “Uche, Alubi and Pinheiro are three major guys used to receive phones from. Five out of the 11 phones traced to me were bought from Uche.”

A police source disclosed that Uche, Pinheiro and Aluba have been on the run since the arrest of Adebayo.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Olarinde Famouse-Cole, confirming the arrest of Adebayo, said that the case has been transferred to the State Criminal Intelligence Investigations Department (SCID, while efforts are ongoing to arrest the fleeing suspects.

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