Regret and shame were the two words that
aptly describe the expression on the faces of Bola Salami, 29, Opeyemi
Aregbesola, 25, and Ogunleye Lati when the Lagos State Police
Commissioner, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, paraded them, among others, for car
theft on Friday.
The duo of Salami and Aregbesola were
out of luck when they were arrested by men of the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad on December 2, 2015 for stealing a red 2010 Toyota Camry. Since
their arrest, the duo have been cooling off in police custody, whilst
assisting them with their investigations.
Speaking to Saturday Punch during the
exercise, Aregbesola, who hails from Osun State, said he was into phone
theft before he decided to get involved in car snatching so he could
raise more money. He began, “Somebody told me he was in need of a
vehicle, so my friend and I decided to snatch one for him. I wanted to
make more money, that was why I agreed to supply the vehicle.
“On the particular day, my friend and I
were passing through the Ofada Street, Olorunsogo, in Mushin (Lagos
State) when we saw the opportunity and we jumped at it. What we had in
mind was to go and snatch phones, which was what we had been doing
before. But when we got to that street and saw the Camry, we just
remembered that somebody had told us he needed such car. That was when
we decided to snatch the car.”
Talking about how they snatched the car
from the victim, whose name was not disclosed, Aregbesola said they
didn’t operate with any weapon. He continued, “We slapped the man on his
chest suddenly and he ran away. He parked his car in front of the house
and left the key on the ignition. He had gone to the boot of his car to
collect something and closed the gate. As he was going back to enter
the car, we slapped him and he ran away. We drove the car away before
the police recovered it through tracking.
“Our main focus was to snatch phones and
we have stolen a number of that but the opportunity came to make more
money and we took it. I met Salami recently and we used to snatch phones
together before this offer came. We had planned to sell the car for
N400,000.”
Giving his own account of how they
snatched the car, Salami, who said he was released from police detention
earlier this year having been wrongly detained for about four years,
said they drove the car from Mushin to Abule Egba before the police
tracked and recovered it from them.
He said, “I was first arrested in Ibadan
in 2011 during a riot by NURTW members. I was in detention for four
years. I was an innocent danfo driver. I have four siblings. It was the
devil that pushed me into this crime and I regret it.
“When I came out of prison, I was
jobless before I met Aregbesola. I had planned to invest the proceeds
from the car robbery. I felt it would be a break for me and I had
planned not to go back to it again if I could make some money from the
Camry deal.” Meanwhile, another Ogunleye Lati was arrested for being a
receiver of stolen vehicles. It was gathered that Lati had agreed to buy
the car from them. Speaking to Saturday Punch, Lati claimed it was the
second time he was getting involved in the crime.
“I didn’t plan to buy the car. This is
actually my second time of getting involved in this business. The first
time, the police also recovered the car, so I decided to see if I could
be successful this time. My plan was to sell the car as soon as the boys
sold it to me.
“I was a computer engineer at Ikeja but
when officials of Kick Against Indiscipline chased us out of Ikeja,
things became difficult for me. They smashed our show glass, everything I
had was gone, things weren’t working for me again, so I had to get
involved in this crime,” he said.
punch
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