• The suspect
The suspect shocked detectives when he claimed that one Festus fooled him after he allowed him(Festus) use his compound as garage where the vehicles were kept. He also denied ever taking part in any of the robbery operations.
Few days later, his confessional statement led to the arrest of another suspected member of the gang in whose custody, twelve exotic Toyota Camry cars were recovered. On inspection, operatives of SARS discovered that the recovered vehicles had been tampered with. For instance, most of the chassis numbers usually found close to the car steering were discovered to have been removed. Also the chassis numbers were discovered not to tally with the original plate numbers issued on receipt.
To the astonishment of the policemen, it was also discovered that all the recovered vehicles were registered in the suspect’s name. Again, the vehicles were discovered to have been sprayed with colours different from their original ones, apparently to prevent their owners from identifying them.
However, in this interview with Crime Alert, the 43-year-old suspect, Mr Bolaji Owolabi, like the first suspect, Israel, denied culpability in the robbery, claiming he bought the vehicles from the same man Israel earlier mentioned in his confessional statement. He also revealed that the man they alleged sold the cars to them is a Custom officer.
According to the second suspect who hails from Ogun state, “ I met Festus two years ago and in the course of our discussion, he told me he was a Custom officer and was in-charge of auctioning cars. That was how I started buying the cars from him since 2009”. But asked why the cars were all Totoya Corolla product, he replied, “ that is what my customers like. He usually sold them to me for N850,000 or N900,000 and I resell for N1 million or N1.2million. I have no shop. What I do is that whenever any customer wanted a car, I would contact the custom officer who will bring the vehicles to me. He never allowed me buy any of the cars on credit, saying his Comptroller frowned at that”.
Asked whether he never at any point suspected the cars were stolen, he responded, “ It was just this year that I noticed that the number engraved in one of the cars was different from that on the plate. And when I asked, he told me it was a mistake. I also noticed that they usually sprayed all the cars and when I asked again, he said it was because they were for auctioning and that since it was being sold to members of the public , it was necessary to change the colours.
If I knew they were stolen, I would not have sold them to people close to me. It was until I was arrested that I got to know the cars were stolen. I swear to God the cars were sold to me by a Custom officer”. He could not, however, state the rank of Festus, the alleged custom officer nor his office saying “ he simply told me his office was in Ikeja and he usually brought the vehicles himself”.
• Some of the recovered vehicles.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Samuel Jinadu who paraded the suspect before newsmen, explained that most of the cars were usually snatched from where they were parked. The robbers, he said, would break the small glass by the driver’s side, from where they would open the cars and tamper with the ignition before driving them away. He said efforts were still on to arrest Festus, the suspected custom officer, and advised members of the public whose Toyota Corolla vehicles were snatched between 2009 and now, to contact the Officer-In-Charge of SARS, to identify their vehicles, with proof of ownership.
Source : Vanguard Newspaper
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