Ex-Naval Officer, 9 others nabbed for robbery, recruitment scam

By PETER DURU

MAKURDI —  The Benue State Police Command, weekend, arrested 10 suspected robbers in Makurdi, including a three-man syndicate led by a dismissed naval officer (name withheld) who specialized in duping innocent members of the public in the guise of recruiting the victims into the Nigerian Navy.

Parading the suspects at the State Police Headquarters in Makurdi, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Christopher Katso, disclosed that the syndicate was apprehended at a Makurdi hotel where they were carrying out “naval recruitment exercise.”

According to the Police Commissioner, “yesterday, our intelligence report uncovered a syndicate of three men, led by one Emmanuel Audu who were fully kitted in naval uniforms, in a hotel room from where they were conducting phony recruitment into the Nigerian Navy.”

Among those paraded by the Command were six armed young men who specialise in robbing their victims with motorbike and another whose stock-in-trade was to steal the original copies of students’ credential at the Benue State University and thereafter demand for N200,000 from owners of credentials to have them returned.

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