*Victims pay N4.2million to regain freedom
Two residents of Aba, Abia State who drove into a petrol retail outlet – Ecko Filling station along Aba –Owerri road to refuel, ended in captivity after they were rounded up by five men who claimed to be operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Messrs Kalu Nnana and Uwaka Ifeanyi were scared stiff as the men who swooped on them at about 8.pm on Monday, January 15, had no insignia of a security or law enforcement agency but merely flashed identity cards supposedly of the anti-graft agency.
Scudnews learned that after seizing the duo, the purported anti-graft operatives told them that they would be driven to the Lagos Zonal Command of the EFCC through Delta State en route to Lagos for an ongoing investigation involving them.
It could not be immediately ascertained if the victims were blindfolded before being taken away, but their pleas for mercy allegedly resulted in a negotiation for payment of ransom and a sum of N4.2million was reportedly paid before they were released at an unidentified location in the GRA, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
After regaining their freedom at about 3.pm on January 16, sources said the victims narrated their ordeal to the police, prompting an investigation into the incident by a team of detectives led by the Commander of an Intelligence and Surveillance Unit of the Rivers State Police Command.
However, it turned that two senior police officers identified Doubara Edonyabo and Talent Mungo, both Assistant Superintendents of Police, ASPs, and Odey Michael, an Inspector of Police, were among the five men who allegedly abducted Ifeanyi and Nnana.
Ironically, reports indicated that while the two senior police officers allegedly involved in abduction were attached to the same Intelligence and Surveillance Unit investigating the crime, the Inspector of Police, Odey, is attached to the Rivers State Police Command.
The identities of their two other accomplices could however not be ascertained as of the time of filing this report.
It was reliably gathered that the two senior police officers and the Inspector of Police have been arrested and detained. They are being interrogated over their alleged involvement in the crime, Scudnews learned on Friday.
“The suspects are currently in detention for further investigation and queries will be issued to the arrested officers while the Inspector will be subject to an Orderly Room trial”, said a senior police officer at the Rivers State Police Command who does not want his name mentioned.
He said the police are handling the incident as a case of abduction and extortion.
