The Police on Saturday said they have disrupted plans by some kidnap gangs to abduct students and other citizens in Niger State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said during a media briefing in Abuja on Saturday that three members of the gangs have been arrested.
He said the suspects were arrested on 17 January by operatives of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) following credible intelligence.
Mr Adejobi said the IRT on 15 January received credible intelligence that a GSM number under surveillance belonging to one of the suspects called another GSM number, informing the recipient of a plan to carry out a kidnap operation.
According to him, in the GSM conversation, the suspect also told the recipient that he had invited other kidnapping gangs and promised to carry out the operation with him.
Mr Adejobi said the suspect also called another person on the phone, who was later discovered to be a member of the gang, informing him that a civil servant in their custody was a very wealthy man with a lot of assets.
He told the gang member not to release the civil servant unless he paid a minimum of N50 million ransom.
According to him, the same conversation, the suspect said he was still carrying out surveillance on a polytechnic in Niger State to kidnap students.
“Investigation has shown that the suspects have been involved in several kidnapping operations in the FCT, including some that happened in the Bwari axis.
“Our operatives are intensifying efforts to rescue the kidnap victims in their captivity and ensure that other members of the gang are arrested,” Mr Adejobi said.
The force spokesperson said police operatives also arrested a suspect on Thursday in Kaduna over armed robbery and kidnapping.
Mr Adejobi said the arrest followed a report that a man was abducted by four armed men from his house in Abuja and driven away in his Hilux van, registered RBC 90 DL.
The four armed men were said to have blocked their victim with their Mercedes Benz car.
“But luck ran out of them as they were intercepted by police operatives at a filling station in Kaduna where three of them escaped while one was arrested with the Hilux van recovered.
“The victim was being taken to Kano, but they stopped at Kaduna where they dispossessed him of his ATM cards and transferred N500,000 from his account,” he said.
He added that investigation had revealed that two of the four armed men were based in Abuja.
Mr Adejobi recalled that the suspect and his accomplices were earlier arrested in November 2023, but granted bail by an FCT High Court.
