An attempt by 21-year-old Temple Samuel to sell his boss’ car and phones has been foiled following his arrest by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command.
The suspect alongside three accomplices was arrested in the Ogba area of Lagos at the point of selling the stolen car.
Samuel, who worked for his boss at a car wash stand in the Egbeda area of Lagos, slept over as usual in his boss’ house last Saturday, only to drive the Lexus ES 330 car away, at about midnight, when his boss was fast asleep.
In the car were his boss’ two mobile phones: iPhone X and iPhone 13, from which he withdrew N75,000.
Luck ran against him by 8 am, the next day, as a team of RRS operatives swooped on him and his accomplices while the car was being evaluated by a buyer.
During interrogation, Samuel said he intended to sell the car and use the proceeds to process his travelling abroad.
He said: “My boss has been so good to me. Sometimes, I drove him and at other times I ran errands for him with the car. I slept at his house last Saturday because I planned to take the car away.
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“Before then, I told one of my friends, Bassey, that my brother was sending me a car from abroad to sell and use the money to establish myself. That was why I drove the car straight to his house.
“Bassey contacted his friend to get a buyer. But there was nothing we could do that night because I got to Bassey’s place by 2 am.
“By 8 am on Sunday, the buyer came with an evaluator. They were still evaluating the car when the police rounded us up. They were yet to tell me the amount they would buy it.”
Spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, SP Benjamin Hudenyin, who confirmed the arrest, gave the identities of the three suspects arrested alongside Samuel as Benjamin Bassey, 32; Chukwuemeka Okorie,29 and Joshua Agboche, 37, saying: “They had conspired with him to sell the car.
“Commissioner of Police, CP Abiodun Alabi, has directed that the case be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, Yaba, for further investigations and prosecution.”
Police arrest son over alleged theft of mother’s car
Meanwhile, a 25-year-old secondary school dropout was also arrested by the state police command for allegedly stealing his mother’s car in Ibadan and attempting to sell it in Lagos.
Hundeyin said the suspect, who is the eldest of three children of the woman, was arrested on Sunday by the Ijora Badiya Police Division in Lagos when he encountered some problems with the car.
He said the suspect, who was alleged to have stolen about N500,000 from his mother earlier to play a betting game popularly known as ‘Baba-Ijebu’ wanted to sell the car to play the same game he had never won.
The image maker said the suspect left Ibadan early morning on Sunday with the car without the consent of his mother, stressing that while in Lagos at about 9.00 a.m., the car developed a fault and he invited a tow vehicle to take it to somewhere within Ijora Badiya area.
He said: “While they were going, the driver of the tow vehicle observed that the suspect’s body movement and discussion showed that the car was stolen.
“The driver of the tow vehicle alerted the police at Ijora Badiya immediately. The police came to them on the road; took the suspect and the vehicle to the station for interrogation.
“The suspect immediately confessed that the car belongs to his mother in Ibadan and that he brought it to Lagos to sell.
“The police called his mother and asked her the whereabouts of her son and her car. The mother said she did not know the whereabouts of her son and her
“The police asked her if she had directed her son to sell her car, but she said that she never gave such a directive.”
She was, therefore, requested by the police to come to Lagos for her car.