End of road for suspected car snatcher in C/ River

Benito Eze, commandant, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Cross River State command, says the war against pipeline vandals and car snatchers is yielding positive results.

Eze stated this after the arrest of Felix Ewang, 29, a suspected car snatcher. Parading the suspect at the state command headquarters, he said the suspect was arrested at Ogoja-Ikom expressway following a tip-off.

According to him, the Acura grey colour MDX jeep was snatched from the owner at gunpoint at Jabi in Abuja, on July 24, 2014, by suspected armed robbers.

“The arrest of the suspect came after we received a signal from our national headquarters in Abuja about the stolen jeep; and we immediately deployed men of our intelligence unit into action.

“With the details and identification which they gave us, we were able to spread our intelligence network across the 18 local government areas of the state.

“On August 2, our men sighted a vehicle with similar identification at Ikom-Ogoja expressway, but the plate number had been changed,’’ he said, adding that the vehicle was displayed at a vehicle stand and marked for sale.

“Our men disguised themselves and proposed to buy the car; and during the interaction, they had close look at the vehicle and discovered that the engine and chassis number was the same as the one we had in our record.

“After observing all these similar identifications, our men had to re-inforce and officers of the Nigerian Army at Ogoja assisted my men in picking up the vehicle,” he said. He said that after extensive investigation, it was confirmed that the car was stolen.

“After our preliminary investigation, we had to package the suspect and the exhibit and hand them over to the police for further investigation and prosecution. We had to hand over to the police because the matter is a criminal case,’’ said.

He advised members of the public to desist from all acts of criminality, adding that they should not buy any vehicle with incomplete or questionable documents.

Ewang, the suspect, said that the car was given to him by his friend. He added that he was to sell it and get some commission in return.

MIKE ABANG