‘How we hijacked 33,000-litre fuel tanker’

Oyo State Police Command, yesterday,
paraded some suspects, who specialised in
hijacking fuel-laden tankers along Oyo-Ilorin
Expressway, Ogbomoso, at gunpoint. One of the
suspects, Dauda Akanji, 42, narrated how they
operate to newsmen at the Police headquarters
at Eleyele, Ibadan, saying they had successfully
hijacked two petrol-laden tankers in the past
before they were caught by the police last week.

He said: “We had successfully hijacked two trucks
in the past along this same road. Whenever the
six of us sight an unsuspecting truck laden with
petrol, we make sure we pursue the driver after
which one of us will climb the truck and
demobilise the pedal.

“Thereafter, the drivers will have no choice but
to stop and on sighting us they run away, leaving
behind the keys to the truck. We then drive the
trucks to where we sell the products to our
receivers.” Akanji added that he was led into the
act out of frustration, as he was not doing well in
his spare parts business.

During the parade, the State Commissioner of
Police, Mr. Leye Oyebade, said the suspects were
arrested after they had snatched an Iveco truck
with number plates XT 643 FKJ at Gbede Village,
Ogbomoso, adding that they also carried out
series of other robbery operations along the
same road in the past.

ATM card fraudster

Also paraded yesterday was one Joshua
Adejumo, 38, who was found with different 14
Automated Teller Machine, ATM, cards. He was
nabbed by operatives of the command after a
complaint was lodged against him by a victim at
the Iyaganku Police Station. Oyebade said:

“Joshua, in his usual manner, approached one
Abosede Ganiyu, a sales girl, who had gone to
withdraw money from the ATM of a commercial
bank at Dugbe and offered to render assistance
to the victim.

“While pretending to help, he deceived his victim
into believing that the card had been seized by
the machine, but cleverly hid it only to use the
same card to withdraw N214,000 from the
savings account of one Temitope, who had sent
her sales girl to make some withdrawal for her.”

However, the suspect, Joshua, who claimed to be
a commercial driver, said: “Someone did it to
me. That was why I started doing it. Whenever I
see anyone come to the ATM and cannot operate
the machine, I offer assistance to them.

“I will then say their ATM card is stuck in the
machine. The unsuspecting customer proceeds
into the banking hall to complain and I would,
thereafter, withdraw money from the customer’s
account. “I do not get a lot of money from this
act. The money I get I use to maintain myself.”