From Matthew Aramunde, Lagos
A robbery suspect, Abayomi Adebayo has revealed that whenever any stolen vehicles are brought by armed robbers to his workshop, he usually demand the sum of twenty five thousand naira from them to effect changes on the engine and chassis numbers.
He made the startling revelation to newsmen, when he was paraded alongside his partners in crime at the Lagos State Police Command at Ikeja.
The middle aged man, who said he is a panel beater by vocation, claimed he learnt the art of effecting changes on engines and chassis of vehicles from his late master, who handed the business over to him when his health condition deteriorated.
He said he never looked back thereafter as his clientele list began to swell, which made it difficult for him to call it quits with the criminal business even as his haunches was intermittently warning him of the lurking danger.
On how he acquired the machines he uses to effect these changes, Abayomi said he opted to abandon the manual system his late master introduced him to after a friend of his introduced those machines stressing that with the purchase of those hi-tech machines, the job that usually takes days to do, was done in just few hours
Looking into the distance when responding to the question of how he now feels now that Nemesis had caught up with him Adebayo said he is full of regret and that he will greatly miss his family but quickly chipped in that he is however happy that his family will not be thrown out as he has built a three bedroom flat at Ayobo area of Lagos State.
It will be recalled that Abayomi and his gang members, who the Police said are specialist in robbing their victims of their cars, after which they effect changes in the engine/chassis numbers before selling it to unsuspecting members of the public, were arrested by the men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad of the Lagos State Police Command following a tip-off
About sixteen cars according to Lagos State Police Commissioner Kayode Aderanti, that were stolen variously were recovered from the suspects in Abuja, Lagos Port-Harcourt and Calabar. He urged the members of the public to always avail the Police of genuine information that would be attended to promptly.
The highlight of the event was the handing over of the keys of one of the recovered Honda car to its rightful owner, Mr. Dipo Ashafa.
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