A member of a notorious arms-smuggling syndicate who has been arrested
in Nigeria has confessed to getting their supplies from Ghana and
Burkina Faso.
The suspect, with his three others who are part of the syndicate, was
arrested alongside 38 kidnappers between May 25 and June 3, 2019.
Their names were given as Ojomo Adebowale Gbenga (45), Oladimeji Adeogun (50), Habib Musibau (24), and Thomas Olumuyiwa (54).
The arrests were made by the Police Intelligence Response Unit, Special
Tactical Squad and Counter-Terrorism Unit attached to Operation Puff
Adder in the North-Western part of Nigeria.
One of the suspects said arms were smuggled from Burkina Faso and Ghana through vehicles.
He revealed that the weapons were usually concealed beneath the floor of
vehicles that are almost always never checked at the various
checkpoints.
“It is a dealing. I am a gunrunner. I’ve been doing this for 15 years.
I’m not the one that brings it [the arms into Nigeria]. I have contacts
in Burkina Faso and Ghana… They conceal it in a vehicle, under the floor
of the vehicle. Perfectly concealed and sometimes they use hides and
skins which they have it more in Burkina Faso and the Sahara areas,”
Ojomo Adebowale Gbenga, one of the suspects said.
The Nigerian police retrieved a total of 6,000 AK-47 live ammunition from them.
Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Frank Mba, said investigations
revealed that the syndicate specialises in smuggling weapons and
ammunition from North Africa through the Sahel region and supplying same
to their criminal partners in Nigeria.
Mba said, “In addition, 24 AK-47 rifles, four pump-action shotguns, 11
dane guns, 10 English pistols, two single barrel guns, one set of Army
camouflage and 22 cartridges were recovered from gangs in different
parts of the country.
“Thirty-eight suspects were also arrested for their different roles in
various criminal operations ranging from kidnapping, armed robbery,
banditry and cattle rustling,” the police officer said.
He said the syndicate sometimes concealed the weapons in toys to enable them to cross police checkpoints without suspicion.
The development comes in the wake of many discussions in Ghana and the
country’s high alert on threats of terror as well as kidnappings in
Ghana.
