For daring to abduct and murder a Divisional Crime Officer (DCO), three members of a gang have been apprehended in Rivers State.
The man in charge of crime in Afam Police Division in Oyigbo Local Government of the state, SP Moses Egbede, was kidnapped and beaten to death by the trio of Philemon Barrifa, 23; Okechukwu Emmanuel, 32 and Barrisitom Gbara, 33, and others now on
the run.
Egbede’s body was thrown into a well located in a bush at Paya/Agbeta community in Eleme Local Government Area after his family had paid a ransom for his release.
The deceased was abducted on July 21, 2020 but after collecting ransom from his family on 30th July, the kidnappers reportedly declined to speak to his family and also switched off.
Operatives of the Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB) and Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Nigeria Police launched an investigation into the incident, leading to the arrest of the three suspects.
The command’s spokesman, SP Nnamdi Omoni, who confirmed the arrests, said:”Operatives of the FIB and Team IRT on August 5th commenced an investigation and with the aid of technical support from TIU Abuja, the perpetrators were identified, which led to the arrest of three of the gang members who allegedly confessed to have kidnapped and killed SP Egbede.
“One of the suspects, Barrifa confessed that the officer was beaten to death after the collection of ransom because he dragged with them and pulled down the face mask of two of their gang members during his abduction.
“Barrifa confessed that kidnapping of the police officer was planned in his house and executed himself and other gang members.
“He was said to have got the sum of N120,000 as a share of the ransom collected.Another suspect, Emmanuel aka Bike boy, also confessed to be in charge of monitoring the movement of security agents during operations and was said to have received N100,000 as share from the DCO’s ransom.
“The third suspect, Gbara, provided the live cartridges used for the kidnapping of the police officer to the gang members through Barrifa.”
He said police have begun a hunting down of other gang members with the assistance of those arrested.
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