Mohammed Shosanya
The Bayelsa State Vigilante Service (BSVS) have arrested four-gang that allegedly specialises in using charms to defraud unsuspecting operators of Point of Sale (PoS) machines, business owners and residents of their cash and other valuables within the Yenagoa metropolis.
The chairman of the BSVS, Doubiye Alagba, confirmed their arrests on Tuesday in Yenagoa,and identified the suspects as Ufuoma John, Igwe White, Opeko Kennedy and Sandra Erhirhis.
The suspects were nabbed in Yenagoa and at a small border community between Bayelsa and Rivers States where they claimed to obtain the charms from a native doctor,he said.
Handing the suspects over to the state’s security outfit, Operation Doo-Akpo, in Yenagoa, for further investigation, Alagba said their arrests followed complaints by some PoS operators and tricycle passengers over the gang’s strange activities.
He claimed that the BSVS apprehended them through intelligence.
He said criminals had some months ago allegedly charmed and defrauded one Micah Innocent, a PoS operator, of the sum of N400,000 and other valuables.
He added:”The syndicates migrate from one PoS point to another with the same method to defraud the unsuspecting victims, including tricycle passengers.
“Once they approach their victims and succeed in using charm, the victims will lose control of themselves and they take you to another location and collect all your money and valuables, in some cases they ask you to transfer to their account.
“Through our intelligence, we arrested one of them, he led us to the residence of another member of their gang who is a native doctor that prepares charm for them and that was how we arrested all of them.
“The suspects confessed to the crime, and narrated that they have been operating within Bayelsa and Rivers State. The suspects further added that they have been operating for long and share percentage of every amount defrauded from victims.”
