By Brave Dickson
The Rivers State Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has confirmed the arrest of the kidnap suspects who shot dead its operative two months ago in Imo State.
The Public Relations Officer of NDLEA, Rivers State, Mr Emmanuel Ogbumgbada gave the identity of the monarch working with the suspects as the traditional ruler of Obor, Eze Andrew Okegbununwa in Awara Ohaji Egbema Oguta LGA of Imo State.
When asked for further details, Ogbumgbada promised to get more facts from the Imo State NDLEA and however sent a video footage to our correspondent.
The footage contained the parading of the suspects, cash and weapons recovered by the police.
The Imo State police were sighted in the video as saying that: “The monarch is the one who used to give out his Lexus car (RX300) to the kidnappers and when they return from their operations, they give him his monetary share.
“In this particular case, the monarch got disappointed as we were able to get him.
“Though, we had intelligence on him (the monarch) for some time but we were trying to know the right time we could get him.
“Four AK 47 riffles, two NDLEA rifles, and four other assorted rifles were recovered from the gang.
The two NDLEA rifles were taken away by the kidnap gang from some NDLEA operatives who were coming from an assignment and were ambushed by the suspects.
“One of the the NDLEA operatives was shot dead by the kidnappers while the other operative was badly injured.
“We have recovered the rifles and in addition, have arrested the suspects that committed this heinous crime.
“We also recovered 120 rounds of live ammunition, a ransom of N4.2million, gun magazines and cartridges.
“And out of the ransom, a sum of N3milllion was given to the monarch as payment to enable him re-purchase another vehicle because the vehicle he gave to the kidnappers was recovered by the police.
“We have so far recovered N4.2million out of the N7.5million that was taken away from victims by the kidnappers.”
